2014 Ticketing Professionals Conference Keynote Speaker, Hannah Rudman, looks at emerging digital technologies and what they mean for live events. She explores several potentially disruptive digital technologies and the greater potential for frictionless transactions.

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
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Australasian Leisure Management January/February 2014 1

2. contents
January/February 2014
Number 102
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COVER: Fitness First’s ‘Dynamic Movement
Training’ programs, first introduced at its
Sydney CBD club at 94 King Street in July
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Changing for the Best
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The Big Picture
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Event Horizon
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Cost Effective
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Career Path: A New Approach
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New Year Resolutions
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Casting a Spell
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Parks under Pressure
Martial arts and combat training facilities are growing fast
Breaking the link between alcohol and sport
Fitness First’s relaunch presents a new approach to fitness
Werribee Open Range Zoo’s role in conservation
Sport New Zealand’s National Facilities Strategy
Emerging digital technologies and live events
A new model of procurement for aquatic facilities
Simon Weatherill’s changing view of leadership
Seven ways to improve management skills
Products
Marina Bay Sands’ two theatres
Are park advocates doing enough to explain their value?
Diary - go to www.ausleisure.com.au
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3. Event Horizon
Hannah Rudman looks at emerging digital
technologies and what they mean for live events
S
ir Tim Berners Lee, the inventor
of the World Wide Web thinks
that there is a third iteration of
the web emerging (web 3.0?): big data,
the internet of things, and 3D printing
are all a part of the wave of emerging
technologies that once again will disrupt
where we are at now, and make a steep
change in our world. (For comparison,
think of the impact on our lives of the
two-way social media technologies of
web 2.0, web 1.0 now refers to the time
when webpages were mainly static
information).
These emerging digital technologies
will potentially blend together with
the latest product and fashion design
to ensure new wearable connected
computing screens, such as ‘Google
Glass’
(‘smart
spectacles’),
and
smart watches, take off. Until now our
technological tools were external addons, largely separate from our bodies.
Today they are evolving on a new path
integrating with our physiology; we are
effectively ‘hacking’ the human body and
the senses.
So what does wearable computing
mean for live events? When our digital
devices are no longer something we carry
with us, when they’ve become a part of
our person as an accessory or jewelry,
what does it mean for live event content
and experiences, or communications?
First, it may well help the established
technology of augmented reality (AR)
take off. It is likely that you already use
AR - perhaps when shopping - on your
smart mobile device. If a product has
the right kind of bar code, QR code, or
symbol, you can point your phone or
tablet’s camera at the product and see
a layer of information about it, like prices
of the same product at other stores in
the area or on the Internet. Or perhaps
you’ve seen a car in action after pointing
your camera at a static newspaper or
billboard ad. You might even have had
a cultural experience like visiting the
44 Australasian Leisure Management January/February 2014
Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Arts
enhanced by AR.
However, consumers have largely
rejected QR codes, because they
demand reader software be installed on
their device, and therefore they are not
intuitive to use. Emerging technologies
like ‘Google Goggles’ and ‘Clickable
Paper’ are intuitive – you simply click
on an image with the smart device’s
camera, which is then recognised by
the inbuilt technology to produce the AR
layer.
It needs to be easy for the end user,
so imagine if AR could happen directly in
front of your eyes – that is the idea behind
Google Glass. Already, the military,
policing, and medical professions use
head mounted sets that are AR capable
to receive more and better information
about what they are seeing and doing.
These wearable computers are about
to emerge in our leisure and personal
lives and could get AR into the hands of
everyone.
Although Google Glass is currently
limited to about 1,500 prototype
spectacle-like head mounted sets, they
are likely to go on mass sale later this
year. The official trailer for Glass has
so far been viewed well over 20 million
times, which suggests that the product
already has a market! It is easy to see
from the trailer how wearable augmented
reality will enhance our lives. Users will
be able to receive live directions, take
and receive photos and video, have realtime translation information overlaid on
things they are looking at, such as signs
in foreign languages, all instantaneously
and effortlessly.
Of course, there are worries about
how ever more intimate and intrusive
the digital world becomes, and about
how much we are offloading onto the
internet, and pulling from it – if I can
pull a piece of information into a users
line of sight when needed, why bother

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5. The AFL Glassware app will let Google Glass wearers look to the screen above their right eye to see a
current AFL match score, or time left on the field.
conscientiously remembering it? Will users become too
compulsively dependent on being connected? What about if
the data they are viewing is hacked? Would smart glasses be
used to collect data for Google, governments or others? There
are other social issues too, such as how to deal with the darker
side of the web like porn, privacy infringements, and intrusive
advertising still needing to be cleared up.
Simultaneously, it is easy to see that removing from the
interface of the device that you must carry round to access,
record and compute data, and making it a part of you – through
a wearable accessory – is extremely compelling. A transparent
heads-up display that helps users engage more with the world
around them, rather than sucking them away from reality via a
screen on a device.
This is the exciting potential for live events. People that want
extra levels of engagement with digital content around an event
will be able to access it without it intruding on the pure live
experience of others. Think of those annoying concert-goers
that seemed to spend the whole concert on their mobiles,
messaging, tweeting, and looking at the concert through their
screens, obscuring your view with the glare of their device? It is
history: their wearable smart specs will give them a tweet ticker
in the lower third of their vision, straight ahead is their viewfinder
for the pictures and videos they want to take and share.
What about those flutter-loving folk at the horses, football,
or tennis that use real time gambling services on their mobile
devices to enhance their enjoyment of an event? If it is in
front of their eyes directly, then it is not something you have to
endure as well.
In addition, Google’s development labs are working on smart
contact lenses – initially to give sufferers of medical conditions
like diabetes a non-invasive glucose monitor, but it will only
be another couple of development steps to link them to smart
devices worn elsewhere on the person, like a watch.
While this will likely take about five years to achieve, it is
clear that technology is evolving to become more personal and
discrete (and less about showing off our financial and fashion
capacity, which is the consumerist trap we are currently sucked
into, always needing to have the latest device to be seen as on
fashion, or up to date!).
There are opportunities to creatively enhance live events and
create new forms of live experience - that happen in front of our
eyes, and enliven our senses - but that are actually imagined.
For example, Selfridges of London is selling the architect
designed £300million superyacht by Zaha Hadid, the biggest
and most expensive item ever sold at Selfridges.
However, the yacht is not there, rather, a ‘virtual yacht’
is anchored to a physical location via a 2D ’marker‘ pattern
that tells the software where to place the object. This means
customers can walk round, and even through, objects as
if they were really there. Visitors will be able to explore an
augmented reality scale model of the 90-metre yacht using a
tablet computer. Similarly, crafters and jewellers are showing
their work in this way. By placing a blank band of paper on your
wrist, you can try on different watches and see your own wrist
modelling them through the screen. The potential of this for live
event promoters is as a selling mechanism for an otherwise
intangible offer: AR can create a sample or trial experience.
These technologies are so engaging, and used in the leisure
sector could: immerse and emerge people in historic culture;
place them in the middle of a sports strategy on the field;
or immerse them backstage at the theatre - in real life as a
live experience, enhanced by digital technologies. Seamless
participation, the continued convergence of content across
platforms, is changing the way we currently interact with the
live event.
Frictionless transactions will also cause some chaos for live
events. New gesture driven interfaces that the new PlayStation
and Xbox consoles already have and that wearable computing
is likely to utilise, and fingerprint driven interfaces like the
iPhone 5S contains, will have impacts that we’re not quite sure
about yet. The idea is to make purchasing from and with your
mobile or wearable device seamless, through only requiring
your thumbprint or a gesture - rather than a login and password.
What will the implications of this technology be for the type of
sales interactions we offer in the leisure sector?
Disruptive digital technologies continue to emerge apace,
constantly evolving public behaviour, and therefore general
cultural, social, and economic norms. Many live experience
creating venues, organisations, and companies find
themselves trying to do too much, with too little, too often on
their own, in order to keep delivering core products, services
and experiences for public engagement, enjoyment and
participation. Digital development support is much needed by
the sectors that run live events if we are to make the most of
the constantly emerging digital opportunities.
Hannah Rudman is passionate about the power of creativity
and culture to make humanity more human, civilisation more
civil, and society more social. She’s also passionate about the
opportunities existing and emerging digital technologies create
to ensure that the live lives on.
Hannah is delivering the keynote speech at 10th Annual
Ticketing Professionals Conference being held in Brisbane
between 17th and 19th February.
www.ticketingprofessionals.com.au
“Virtual Yacht”
Using Unity technology, Technogym has released the world’s first Google Glass controlled treadmill
46 Australasian Leisure Management January/February 2014

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