THE SHOW MUST GO ON: Foresense AI and the future of travelling exhibitions

Travelling exhibitions, touring events and seasonal shows all have a common goal: to encourage the widest possible audiences across the towns, cities and regions they visit.

While these types of events encompass very different operators and audiences they also have another common goal in maximising revenue in each and every stop.

From educational and cultural exhibitions, through to entertainment, agricultural shows and fairs profitability is key to ongoing success, year in, year out.

Often it is a very fine line between fiscal success and failure where operational costs can fluctuate from site to site and uncertainty in audience numbers and expenditure levels.

Bankruptcies and cancellations in these events are high.

What is certain is the need to exhaust each and every revenue opportunity to ensure the best possible outcomes for each and every event.

Until now, the science and technology in marketing behind these events has been limited.

Advertise in the local market and sell as many pre-event tickets as possible.

Then hope that walk up sales are high – and that environmental factors such as the weather and even COVID restrictions fall in favour.

Measures in success are also left wanting in today’s age of technology.

In a world where data is both knowledge and power, travelling exhibitions only have two key metrics: patron numbers and revenue.

And in a transient business where once an event has passed by, any missed opportunities for either are often never had again.

Now there is a new technology revolutionising behavioural data procurement across industry and commerce.

Now, that technology presents traveling event owners and managers with a cost effective solution to really drill down into behavioural patterns and increase revenue at every opportunity.

That technology is Foresense.

The Foresense platform offers an AI powered solution to gain an unprecedented level of insight into patron flow and density and how people utilise and interact with event attractions and facilities.

Foresense simplifies the collection of presence data and the analysis of action – and interaction – onsite in real world settings to provide real-time analytics of foot traffic inside and around any physical location.

In a similar way to how behavioural data is utilised online through careful analysis of aspects such as dwell time, session duration, and unique and return visitations the Foresense platform collects data through a network of sensors integrating with visitors’ smartphones allowing accessibility in real time so highly-informed, proactive decisions can be executed as trends are actually emerging.

With Foresense AI, identify exactly what areas need improvement to make any event, its attractions and its facilities more efficient, profitable and patron friendly.

As a complete journey mapping solution, individual patron data such as total time spent on site,and the breakdown of time spent at different attractions and designated spaces such as food and restroom areas is collected.

This offers a revolutionary new way to guide commercially based decisions with more detailed, quantifiable data to improve operational KPIs and efficiencies. Optimise facility location, layout and design, service provision outlets, signage and staffing levels across peak demand periods.

Additional staff can be deployed when and where they are needed most to reduce waiting times at entrance points, security posts and other crowd bottlenecks to keep movement flowing and alleviate congestion.

The technology only interacts with individual smartphone identifiers alleviating any privacy concerns and completely retaining personal anonymity.

While acknowledging privacy, Foresense also facilitates a direct avenue of communication with patrons via push notification technology.

This technology can be used to enhance patron experience with information about individual attractions or exhibits, or notify of any hazards or area closures.

It also presents enhanced, indivdiualised marketing opportunities.

Encourage visitation to any attractions and other areas not yet visited.

Offer incentivisation to visit inhouse vendors, merchandise and food/drink areas.

Foster impulse purchasing with real-time proximity discounts.

Even encourage return patronage with heavily discounted ticketing for secondary visits.

In these ways, ensure that every single visitor is given multiple options for additional expenditure at each and every opportunity.

The Foresense platform can actually detect when someone stops at any given exhibit or attraction for an extended period of time.

It can then offer patrons different tiers of information and the opportunity to learn more about what they are interested in, linking to further reading, video presentations and even augmented reality.

In this way, virtual tours can become a highly personalised, heightened visitor experience, encouraging longer stays, further learning and even repeat visitations by reminding visitors of missed attractions, suggesting they may need to return at another time to take everything in.

The technology also presents a range of possibilities and opportunities for curators and administrators to discover reasons why certain attractions are not performing as expected – and make necessary change.

Learn how people actually navigate across physical space and between attractions – discover the exact numbers and average dwell times to quantify the popularity for each and every attraction to base decisions for when to replace or bring in similar attractions.

The technology can even complement existing security surveillance systems.

The AI platform detects loitering, unauthorised entry, crowd crush points and can deploy security staff in real time as issues develop.

The technology can be implemented to address personal safety concerns for staff and patrons alike. For example identify where a person is not moving across an area as normal (such as a carpark), or has been stationary for an excessive amount of time in an area (such as a restroom) indicating collapse, assault or unconsciousness.

For staff productivity and workplace legislative adherence, monitor individual workers for arrival and departure times, meal and rest breaks.

Employee movements and exact locations at any point in time can also easily be accessed and automated real time messaging can be implemented to raise alert or alarm.

As we learn to live with COVID, Foresense can also complement existing digital tools to monitor and log patrons as they move across the complex to assist contact tracers and keep everyone safer.

In this way it can be used to monitor and control the number of people gathering in any given area to address crowd density regulations.

It can also identify patrons who have not proven their vaccination status or recently received negative COVID test results where such laws have been introduced.

Patrons who bypass QR code scan points can receive digital reminders to check in, taking responsibility out of the hands of attendants and staff.

Travelling exhibitions, touring events and seasonal shows have long been limited in the types of data they can gather and ways to ensure that revenue opportunities are maximised while their audiences are captive.

With the power of digital technology and AI, Foresense Technologies presents a dramatic shift forwards placing greater power in the hands of management for these events making them smarter and safer while improving patron experiences and profitability.

With irrefutable qualitative data readily available, minute aspects of day-to-day operations can be scrutinised with greater clarity to guide key decisions.

Ensure the show goes on….into the future with Foresense.