Returning as a judge for the 2018 Event Technology Awards is Alex Barbero, Senior Sales Executive for Grupo Eventoplus.
Full Name: Alex Barbero    Â
Company: Grupo Eventoplus       Â
Job Title: Senior Sales Executive
- How did your career lead you to your current job?
I was very young when I “discovered” the Events Industry… I was 16 when a good friend of mine proposed me to organise a New Year’s Eve party for a hundred friends. This party became, during the following 8 years, a must in Barcelona, a NYE Party for four thousand people… Crazy times!
In between, I joined an AV rental company as a weekend job, I spent weekends and holidays climbing structures and setting up screens in the most famous clubs in Ibiza and Barcelona.
After this, I started working in production as a freelancer for event agencies.
Then, one day in 2009, I saw a job offer from Eventoplus to develop the technical companies segment as a Sales Executive… I accepted. Since then, I have been in contact with all sorts of technical and technological companies, selling our solutions, but also learning about what they do.
Thanks to that I discovered my passion: to make this part of the sector more understandable for people who organise events. And here I am, evangelising the Spanish event industry in the goods of the Eventtech.
- What events have you been involved with recently and in what capacity?
Grupo Eventoplus organises some big events in Spain, a Summit for the MICE industry called Meeting and Incentives Summit, a Trade Show called EventoDays and an Awards Gala Dinner called Premios Eventoplus, as well as smaller meetings for our Club members…I’m involved in different areas in each one.
But my favourite is the Trade Show: it is the oldest way to sell, and now applying new technologies and all the knowledge gathered through the years, they are becoming complete brand experiences and, since we are leaving the financial crisis behind, this type of event is coming back stronger and smarter than before. Alive and kicking!
- What type of event technology would you like to see improved or developed and why?
I would like to see how Virtual Reality evolves from an individual experience into a collective one.
Today you put on your VR Glasses and live your own experience, your own event. It is quite well done, you have the feeling that it’s tailor made… but an event is a collective experience.
So I would like to see how VR turns into an experience in which thousands of people can live the same, share the experience, interact with each other.
- Is there a particular piece of event technology that has impressed or inspired you?
As an occasional speaker, I always felt a sort of attraction to all these solutions that turns any AV surface into a multi-tactile screen… Probably the most famous on the list will be some consumer hack apps for Kinect or the classical interactive whiteboard (focused on the educational sector), but there are others more specific for the event sector, like Christie’s Coolux or the interactive films and frames for the screens. It is not new tech but they still create the WOW effect every time someone uses it, and it definitely is a fun trick for a keynote.
- What technology do you think is overhyped?
Definitely today’s Virtual Reality for events… As I mentioned, I would like to see how it evolves: in my opinion, now the VR Glasses are only a gadget reproducing some amazing content that impresses you the first time but on the second time gives you nothing new.
- What professional experiences can you draw on to judge the Event Technology Awards?
As a member of the leading Media Group for the Event industry in Spain, Grupo Eventoplus, I know about and attend the most impressive events in Spain, looking with a Producer’s eyes, sometimes a Technical one.
I have the opportunity for analyse and compare all sort of events.
I also speak to many agencies and corporate clients and know first hand their needs, experiences and frustrations.
- What are you most looking forward to as an Event Technology Awards judge?
I love to be up to date within event tech: It is my job but it’s my passion too.
I’m all year anticipating this moment when I can read all the projects and get surprised by new tech developments or a new app.
- Name one app you cannot live without and why?
I confess I’m addicted to everything I download on my phone, but this doesn’t make me any different from the rest of the people on our industry. Also I’m obsessed by any gadget controlled by my phone.
But let me elaborate: I can’t live without any device that reproduces my Spotify favourite playlist. I mean headphones, PC-speakers, Bluetooth receiver connected to my Home-Cinema… whatever I am there is a device playing my playlists…
So I guess I am addicted to Spotify, don’t you think?
The Event Technology Awards ceremony returns to Troxy on November 7, between the two days of Event Tech Live 2018.
Author: Adam Parry
Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.
