Touchless technology, crowd-tracking sensors and real-time data to define future of $1trln megaevents industry, WGS report reveals

Touchless technology, crowd-tracking sensors and real-time data to define future of $1trln megaevents industry, WGS report reveals

DUBAI - The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies, including such innovations as crowd-tracking sensors to collect real-time data, mixed reality and metaverse, will define the future of megaevents in the post-COVID-19 world, a report published by the World Government Summit Organisation has revealed.

The research, published in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), calls on government leaders to learn lessons from events such as the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, Hajj and Dubai’s Expo 2020 held successfully during the pandemic using a mix of virtual, physical and hybrid approaches.

According to the report, cities hosting megaevents, which contribute almost US$1 trillion annually to the global economy, must "rethink how to deal with these events in the future because the frequency of future shocks is expected to increase". Organisers should plan for a "hybrid future" and look to new ways of hosting events rather than a return to the pre-COVID-19 ways of working.

The paper titled "Meeting the Future: How Megaevents Should Transform for Success in a Post-COVID-19 Era" called for further development of "much-needed" smart solutions such as video analytics, AI, and Internet of Things sensors to predict and track crowd density across a space. Technologies for public health include big data and dynamic dashboards to