Coming up May 4-6, iGaming NEXT will be launching their very own digital event, “The Big Reset”, addressing how iGaming professionals are adapting to a new digital norm, both from a personal and professional perspective.
Pierre Lindh, Co-founder and Managing Director of iGaming NEXT, views digital events as an opportunity for innovation and change for an industry that has been stuck in time for several decades.
Due to the nature of digital events, tickets are much less expensive than in-person events and without a travel commitment, many more people are able to attend. For this reason, Lindh decided to do things a little differently for the upcoming digital installment of iGaming NEXT.
“Our agenda will actually be a little bit wider than what you would expect at a normal conference. We focus a lot on the professional development, personal development, specifically targeting the iGaming professionals”, he revealed.
“We think its important right now with the social restrictions that are in place which can bring challenges with them for people who are working remotely, both in terms of how they organize themselves but also from a mental health point of view as well”, Lindh explained.
“So we’re trying to touch on those subjects and also on more industry related subjects like what will happen in the future and stuff like that”, he added.
Lindh went on to explain how the events industry is a traditional industry and digital events had not really caught on pre-pandemic, but the capabilities out there for digital events are actually quite interesting. After all the research he and his team carried out over the past month, he was surprised that the demand for digital events had not existed before.
“The biggest advantage to a digital event is the opportunity to be more interactive as a delegate”, Lindh explained.
“You can interact more with the speakers and the other delegates, its much, much better and much, much more efficient. And that’s also an opportunity when it comes to the networking as well”, he said.
“You can exchange contact details or as a partner you can showcase your product much more efficiently, actually, in a digital event than what you can in an in-person event. So a very interesting future that we have ahead of us now”, Lindh added.
Of course, Lindh and his team are not the only organizers in our space to make this realization, SBC’s Digital Summit is taking place this week, ICE North America’s in mid-May, SiGMA’s in early June, iGB Live!’s in July, more in between and likely more after.
“Our purpose as event organizers within the iGaming industry is very simple. We are here to connect the industry so that the industry can do business with less friction, basically”, said Lindh.
“This is a critical time for all events companies right now and its important that the iGaming industry that we work with take notice of this at the moment and really embrace this change into the digital situation of events, because the opportunities are still the same”, he explained.
“We can still connect suppliers with operators, we can still organize really great events when it comes to knowledge sharing and things like that”, he added.
While the idea of digital events still feels a bit foreign, especially for us iGaming professionals who have been attending in-person events for over a decade now, Lindh is certain they are here to stay. Digital events may be serving as a replacement for in-person events at present, but he predicts they will be a compliment to in-person events in the future.
“When the industry experiences these events and what the platforms are capable of, I’m sure everyone will agree that they have a place in the market even when the in-person events are able to continue”, Lindh shared.
“It will mean that it will be a natural part of any in-person event to also have a digital twin that runs alongside the in-person event, but I also think that it will mean that we will be able to organize more events digitally as well, because there is no reason why you wouldn’t be able to organize more reoccurring events digitally”, he said.
“[Digital events] can be for different purposes. They can be to connect people, they can be for knowledge sharing, they can be for think tanks, for example…so there are a lot of opportunities for digital events to coexist together with the in-person events and I think that’s great news to everyone, to be honest with you”, Lindh added.
