Companies with an international customer base, such as the capital management company HANSAINVEST, face the challenge of providing its stakeholders with access to business events, no matter where in the world they are located. Conventional annual general meetings or on-site in-house trade shows have come under scrutiny since the Corona pandemic hit — almost every company now offers live streams in parallel. The shift, however, to the digital space is creating a vacuum of attention and interaction. Watching static events from the home office quickly loses its appeal; the possibilities of conveying complex or visually appealing content, gathering feedback, gauging sentiments and interacting with the audience are limited. At the same time, on-site events, which allow for more design options, are becoming outdated, especially from a climatic and financial perspective. Through a consistent and well-thought-out virtualization of B2B events, these challenges can be overcome and at the same time generate concrete added value for customers, as the HANSAINVEST showcase impressively demonstrates.
For FONDSTIQUE 2021, a digital investor fair of HANSAINVEST Hanseatische Investment GmbH, NeXR developed a virtual keynote for Gabor Steingart, founder and publisher of Media Pioneer Publishing AG. He appeared, represented by his virtual avatar, on board of the virtual reality environment of the media ship “The Pioneer One”. The keynote was streamed live from NeXR’s motion capture studio and could be experienced immersively via VR glasses by selected attendees. During the virtual business event, all attendees had the opportunity to take a brief journey behind the scenes of global financial centers aboard the virtual The Pioneer One. Among them were the Port of Singapore and New York’s Wall Street. The combination of different NeXR technologies opens completely new possibilities for speakers to present and interact with the audience. During the FONDSTIQUE 2021 keynote, for example, Steingart presented 3D animated graphics floating in a virtual space, changed the backdrop to match his presentation, and offered attendees the opportunity to provide feedback and visualize it live.
The virtual business event was streamed on a HANSAINVEST internal platform. Several hundred viewers attended Gabor Steingart’s opening speech. Another 25 selected participants were also able to experience the keynote with VR glasses and interact even more intensively with the virtual environment as well as the speaker. Afterwards, a survey was conducted: it was clear that the level of attention during the event was remarkably high, and that the information conveyed was memorable. By virtualizing the event, it was also possible to keep the event’s carbon footprint exceptionally low as a result of eliminating travel. Furthermore, the B2B event could be set up with a fraction of the budget in comparison to an on-site event.
Due to advancing digitalization, central meeting places are rapidly losing importance in the business context. Beyond worldwide remote work options, much has changed in recent years, especially with face-to-face events. Companies like HANSAINVEST have clearly recognized the benefits of virtual business events but, at the same time face the challenge of continuing to offer their customers engaging experiences with direct interaction opportunities and a high level of information transfer.
HANSAINVEST – Hanseatische Investment GmbH – is one of Germany’s renowned capital management companies and provides a wide range of services for the administration of liquid and non-liquid asset classes. Based in three offices (Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main and Luxembourg), nearly 300 employees manage more than 420 mutual and special funds with gross fund assets of over 55 billion euros. The company has been named “Best Service KVG” in 2021 by the trade press.
Like many companies with an international clientele, HANSAINVEST has also launched a virtual event format – the digital investor fair FONDSTIQUE. During conception and planning, the company faced two main challenges. First, conveying the complex content of the trade fair and its speakers in an eye-catching way in the digital world. Secondly, enabling event participants to take an active part and interact with the speakers in a natural way.
The aim was to avoid the feeling of a classic online group event, as experienced by the participants, but also by the speakers, in their day-to-day work. At the same time, the company faced the challenge of attracting well-known speakers to the event. The company management also wanted to leave the smallest carbon footprint possible with the investor fair.
NeXR Technologies SE designs, plans and implements digital business events, embedding speakers as live avatars in a fully– customizable setting, creating unprecedented virtual reality experiences for companies like HANSAINVEST.
Using the example of the opening keynote by renowned journalist, book author and publisher of Media Pioneer Publishing AG, Gabor Steingart, we show what an ideal virtual B2B event in extended reality can look like. All personnel and technical resources— from the body scan to the live stream in our own motion capture studio— are provided in-house by NeXR.
The partnership with HANSAINVEST came about through a chance meeting of NeXR and HANSAINVEST management. Since HANSAINVEST was on the lookout for new, innovative forms of presentation, NeXR quickly offered its solutions. Working together with NeXR, Gabor Steingart was inspired for the virtual reality keynote.
Based on the content of Gabor Steingart’s keynote, NeXR developed a concept for implementing the opening speech in virtual reality. To make the speech as varied and exciting as possible, the editorial ship “The Pioneer One” was digitally recreated by the NeXR virtual production team. FONDSTIQUE participants were thus taken on a journey to the world’s financial centers – including New York’s Wall Street and the Port of Singapore. In addition, complex information was presented in the form of 3D elements that floated in virtual space making them more tangible for the participants. On the virtual stage, Steingart was able to control the lighting effects individually. In the meantime, for example, the windows of the Pioneer One were darkened.
Gabor Steingart had the opportunity to move freely in the virtual space throughout the keynote – and to address individual participants directly and interact with the audience. To enable Steingart to perform in virtual reality, we digitized his body in our self-developed and patented Fusion III body scanner. More than 100 cameras created an identical virtual image of Steingart, the so-called “virtual twin.“.
In the next step, our 3D production and rigging team worked on the subtleties of the keynote speaker’s gestures and facial expressions to create an even more realistic avatar. The depth of avatar detail is one of NeXR’s unique selling points, along with its integrated approach to solutions.
To broadcast the keynote live in virtual reality, Gabor Steingart came to our Berlin motion capture studio on the day of the event. There, he was equipped with a motion capture suit and performed his keynote in front of the green screen. The audience, some of whom were wearing virtual reality headsets, saw Steingart embedded in the previously created virtual environment.
During the event, Steingart addressed the audience directly and posed questions in the room that could be answered by voting. The results were also presented three-dimensionally in virtual space.
Although monetization functions were not used, NeXR also offers the possibility of making (business) events even more interactive by enabling purchase functions for viewers, e.g. during product presentations.
For the conception and realization of the HANSAINVEST/Gabor Steingart virtual keynote, NeXR teams from the areas of 3D avatar creation, motion capturing, body-scanning and virtual production were involved. Andrii Horbach, Producer and Product Owner at NeXR, oversaw the project. On behalf of the client, Dr. Jörg W. Stotz, Spokesman of the HANSAINVEST Management Board, was responsible.
We scan the presenter to create a digital avatar or build fictional ones.
Our production team creates customized, interactive stages
in a virtualized environment
Presenter is captured in real time in our MoCap studio to feel more connected to the audience.
Broadcasting the virtual virtual business event for a VR or 2D audience on a global stage.
Producer and Product Owner
at NeXR technologies SE
The project was initiated by the corporate managers of NeXR and HANSAINVEST. When Gabor Steingart agreed to be the keynote speaker, the creative work began.
Definitely the tight timeline. We only had roughly two months to design the keynote, develop the environment and get the technology ready to go. There was not much room for error. But in the end, we did it with our talented team and are proud of the result!
The Gabor Steingart Keynote was my first project at NeXR! So, I remembered the details very well and a lot of the production was new to me. I especially enjoyed Gabor’s dance at the end of the presentation.
Virtual corporate events combine the advantages of the analog and digital worlds. Viewers have the feeling of being up close and personal at the event and perceive the speakers projected into the virtual space as much more tangible. At the same time, B2B VR events feel more lively, interactive and exciting than pure screen meetings.
These are precisely the impressions participants of the HANSAINVEST Gabor Steingart keynote described in a post-event survey.
Several hundred HANSAINVEST stakeholders attended the keynote. The interaction rate among the attendees was remarkable. Most of the invited audience watched the entire keynote and stayed in the live stream until the end. This shows that the virtual presentation format is very attention-grabbing and worked for the entire keynote duration.
In addition to the positive attendee feedback, other successes were also achieved. Compared to an on-site event with a similar audience size, the event’s carbon footprint was significantly reduced simply by eliminating travel to and from the event.
At the same time, the conception and execution of a virtual event resulted in significant cost savings compared to an on-site opening speech at HANSAINVEST.
“With FONDSTIQUE, we pursue the approach of simply offering investors more. Our customers can get to know unique products and innovative investment approaches in niche and specific topics. Fittingly, the virtual keynote by Gabor Steingart, realized by NeXR, was a special highlight. As a technology partner, NeXR provided the participants of FONDSTIQUE 2021 with an exciting outlook on the conferences of the future.”
The HANSAINVEST keynote generated a lot of attention in the B2B sector – not least due to the prominence of speaker Gabor Steingart. NeXR is already planning events with different focus for other companies – from interactive product launches to globally streamed company annual general meetings.
Learn more about our OnPoint Motion Capturing Studios in Berlin Charlottenburg.
We create photo-realistic avatars that our partners can use in real time.
Follow press coverage of NeXR corporate events.
Learn more about our OnPoint Motion Capturing Studios in Berlin Charlottenburg.
We create photo-realistic avatars that our partners can use in real time.
Follow press coverage of NeXR corporate events.
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Phone: +49 (0) 30 403 680 14-0
E-Mail: sales@nexr.io
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