The theme park and themed entertainment industry has been a model of technological innovation in recent years. Themed entertainment uses technology to enhance and support narrative and immerse visitors in memorable, impactful experiences.
By following that lead, corporate spaces – which may not be top of mind for many when the topic of powerful narrative and immersive experiences is raised – can leverage these same technological tools to elevate their own environments for employees and guests.
Theme park trends and, in general, innovative technology trends have a large role to play in redefining the way corporate spaces are designed and bringing forward-looking solutions to organizations around the world.
Let’s take a look at seven advances in theme park and themed entertainment technology solutions that can be adapted to corporate spaces to achieve powerful results.
Theme Park Technology Trends Ready to Transform Corporate Spaces
- Projection Mapping
Projection mapping allows you to do what the name suggests – project video onto essentially any surface, creating impactful and striking imagery that becomes a part of the overall environment and the impression it leaves on guests. Projection mapping in themed entertainment has allowed organizations to craft immersive, seemingly expansive and enthralling worlds, even in small spaces, and corporate environments can leverage that potential.
Corporate lobbies can utilize mapping to project exciting videos, key information, beautiful logos or art installations, and more that can captivate visitors and deliver emotions and an atmosphere that match that of your organization and get guests in the right frame of mind. It can also be used to tailor the visit toward the guest by projecting their own logo, content and more to make them feel welcome.
Projection mapping can do the same for employees in workspaces, helping engage and motivate them and promoting feelings of excitement, inspiration and inclusion.
- Pepper’s Ghost
The Pepper’s Ghost illusion crafts what many refer to as a “hologram,” though it’s really just a combination of digital footage, advanced effects and software leveraging ray optics and light reflection to create the effect of a digital copy of a person or character. Theme parks use the technique to highlight characters and have them interact with guests and the world around them – and corporate spaces can use the same technology to achieve a similar effect.
At the largest scale, this effect could be used to have “assistants” or digital copies of employees greet and interact with corporate guests on your campus or to have a “hologram” presenter at large conferences, etc. In the age of COVID-19, you could virtually “present” over great distances with prerecorded footage and more.
Pepper’s Ghost could also be used for smaller effects, such as projecting 3D logos or wayfinding instructions that enhance the cutting-edge feel of your corporate space.
- Virtual Reality
Virtual reality’s uses in themed entertainment are largely self-explanatory – the entire goal of themed entertainment is to transport guests to another, immersive world, and literally putting them in that world via virtual reality is a tremendous way to accomplish that goal.
This same goal can be achieved in a corporate environment, where virtual reality can be used either in the space itself or over distance for a variety of purposes. Consider the impact of not simply telling a guest about a product, but placing them into a virtual world where they can see it, rotate it and examine it for themselves? What about offering a virtual tour or your space, no matter where in the world the “visitor” is, helping you immerse them in your own created “world?” Virtual reality is no longer purely the property of entertainment.
- Augmented Reality
Similarly, augmented reality is ready to jump beyond the boundaries of themed entertainment and into your corporate space. Augmented reality is the act of overlaying digital information or visuals over physical spaces, changing the viewer’s perception.
This allows you to make your space essentially anything you want it to be and to “edit” it per visitor to deliver a tailored experience. It also has uses for employees, who can be inspired by overlaid designs and works in progress, stats and information, and more.
Augmented reality can also take advantage of employees and guests’ mobile devices to offer points where they can find specific information about safety measures, key meetings, and more. This is critical in the age of COVID-19 and social distancing but is ready to elevate your corporate space well beyond those confines.
- Facial and Voice Recognition
Detailed information and automation are now expected, and facial and voice recognition solutions have taken on critical importance in delivering upon that vision while maintaining safety in corporate spaces. As reopening marches on and organizations work to adapt physical workspaces to allow employees and guests to inhabit them once again, these solutions can provide a clearer path toward agility and enhancement of a space’s ability to allow for touchless interaction, social distancing, and more.
Facial and voice recognition can be leveraged in corporate entrances and throughout the space as part of screening solutions and security, access and visitor control systems, making them more robust by collecting more actionable data about exactly who is inhabiting a space at a given time, where they’re going and what they’re doing.
These solutions can also be integrated into holistic approaches to touchless and hands-free solutions, including interactive displays that provide information, hands-free doors and lighting, room access, and more.
- Innovative Show Effects
Who says corporate spaces need to be boring to be professional? Consider the Eaton Experience Center, where a 53-foot multimedia chandelier and 80-foot LED curtain leverage architecture and design to create an impressive show for employees and guests alike.
Powerful audio, video and display effects can be used in your actual space to inform and entertain guests, to put on creative and memorable presentations for both visitors and employees, and more. Corporate spaces are evolving alongside growing expectations for experiences, and these effects can help you keep pace.
- Gamification
Gamification is the application of game-like elements in non-game context, and it’s been used in themed entertainment for years – but it’s ready to make the leap to the workplace.
Gamification in training can help engage employees and increase retention, and combining gamification with some of the other innovations on this list can create a truly unmatched environment. Consider a projection or video wall where employees can compete against one another in some aspect of the work that you do or gamification elements that can allow visitors to explore your campus and organization in a unique way by earning points for tasks, remembering details, meeting people, and more.
Choosing the Right Technology Partner with Experience in Both Worlds
These technological innovations are critical to crafting future-proof corporate spaces and experiences because, like in themed entertainment and theme parks, narrative and immersion are now expectations.
That’s the why – and an experienced partner like Electrosonic can guide you to the how.
Electrosonic has a long history of excellence in both themed entertainment technology solutions and in corporate environments, meaning we have a finger on the pulse of both industries and on how they can play off of one another to create memorable experiences where we live, work and play.
To learn more, contact us today.
