At the beginning of the LDI2021 panel, Today’s Young Professionals: The Need To Diversify Your Skill Set, Bill Digneit, department head, Theatre & Dance, Northern Michigan University, and production director for LDI, mentioned going to a chain restaurant and seeing screens with both advertising and artistic content displayed. He said, “Someone had to design and program those screens because everything is now entertainment. Our skill sets are in demand not just for live events.” While live entertainment professionals have suffered from job insecurity during the pandemic, those with the right skills have a bright future as the industry expands to encompass advertising activations, marketing campaigns and immersive consumer branding experiences.
LDI’s sister show, Digital Signage Experience taking place November 17-19, is host to many of the companies and visionaries highlighting the cutting-edge technologies at the forefront of these interactive consumer experiences
Last year, many LDI2021 attendees experienced the work of DSE’s keynote speaker, Turkish multimedia artist and data sculptor Refik Anadol, at the LINQ Hotel + Experience in Las Vegas, where his LED artwork is part of an installation there. This summer, Anadol’s ground-breaking multi-sensory Metaverse project, DATALAND, will launch. While entertainments such as the Van Gogh show and iLLuminarium in Atlanta and Las Vegas have introduced the public to custom immersive experiences, DATALAND will surround visitors with different virtual reality worlds while they travel through The Linq casino, pulling them into virtual adventures in an environment that responds to them without the need for wearables or human cues. While Anadol’s work encompasses large-scale multimedia art installations, such as the projections on the Disney Concert Hall (below), and immersive activations to a current NFT collaboration with SPACEX, it is clear that in the future, even the smallest advertising or brand awareness project, like the restaurant screens referenced by Digneit, will require the expertise of live event professionals.
DSE takes place from November 17-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and as well as the keynote speech includes a full conference agenda, from Trending Technologies in the Attractions Sector to Why Brands and Agencies Are Now Quickly Moving to Programmatic Digital Out of Home.