Come with us into the new dimension
While waiting impatiently for the time when live events can come back in full force, we’ve been diligently finding new and innovative ways for you to engage your audience.
We hope you’ll be as excited as we are about our brand-new platform, Tobacco Dock Virtual. We’ve brought all our passion for our iconic venue, combined it with our wealth of event experience and added a healthy dose of tech to deliver a fully immersive 3D virtual world within which you can host creative, dynamic and engaging events.
Bringing people together
There are so many reasons why we are passionate about events: the buzz, the vicarious joy of guests having a great time, the generation of ideas, the drama of the set, the wonder of new products. The thing that unites all these aspects, the core reason to hold an event in the first place: to bring people together in a shared experience.
Of course, that’s a tricky prospect right now. We’ve all been stuck at home, muddling through with phone calls and racking up the Zoom hours. We’ve shared our thoughts and experiences with others on webinars and even attended virtual conferences. Of course, this is better than nothing, but it doesn’t fill the gap left by meaningful and real personal interaction.
Our Live From Tobacco Dock studios have helped to bring audiences closer to the live experience, but no matter how innovative the portal, no matter how crystal clear the visual or speedy the streaming, there’s still a sense of disconnection. Your remote attendees are still at their desks, on site attendees set at a distance from one another.
We’re going a step further
We developed Tobacco Dock Virtual alongside our long-term partners LWE who host their large-scale music events here. We wanted to find a way to deliver captivating and memorable events that our guests can truly experience rather than just watch.
Working with Sansar, the world’s leading live events platform, we have re-created our entire venue in a 3D virtual world.
When you attend a Tobacco Dock Virtual event, your avatar can travel through the venue and interact with other attendees as well, try out the next big game release, discover new products, interact with prospects, listen to a headline speaker and ask your questions in real time. Taking part in this way takes you away from the dull familiarity of your desk and truly immerses you in the world of the event as if you really were there.
Sponsorship and branding opportunities come into their own as well, with the ability to show off your brand in countless ways. You can create exciting activations and build an experience for your attendees which tells the story of your brand in new ways. Gamification of events was gathering momentum even before the pandemic, imagine the possibilities when your guests are already there within your very own photo-realistic virtual world.
The future of events
It won’t be too long (fingers crossed) before events will be able to take place in person again, and in many ways I think this is where the most exciting aspect of Tobacco Dock Virtual comes to the fore. The platform allows your live and remote attendees an augmented experience from wherever they are. Watching a fashion show? All the collection details are right at your fingertips as you watch. Attending a product launch? Get the feedback from other attendees as you try it out for yourself!
There’s no denying that COVID has plummeted the events industry into dark times, but it has also catalysed innovation and we believe that through innovative tech and some lateral thinking there could be a bright light at the end of the tunnel. The combination of a live audience plus a truly immersive experience for the virtual audience will be the best of both worlds.