Leveraging emerging audio technology at events and exhibits

The sense of hearing is often overlooked at events, but brands are paying more attention to customers’ aural experience lately, playing with new technology and event design to create events that actually sound better.

Three ways event audio is getting an upgrade via new design and technology:

More Focused Audio

Audio domes (also known as sound domes)—which look like upside down saucers above the listener’s head—are becoming increasingly popular, with brands from Sprint Nextel to Siemens Medical incorporating them into events. An audio dome makes music or messaging audible only to the person standing directly below it. Take a few steps away and the sound is virtually impossible to hear. Sirius Satellite Radio used the devices in lieu of headphones for a recent mobile tour. “We went to a lot of events [where] people are hot and sweaty and don’t want to share headphones,” says Courtney Neumann, senior marketing manager at Sirius. “It made consumers more likely to listen… because they didn’t have to put anything on their heads.”

Rival XM Satellite Radio used the domes at the Major League Baseball All-Star Fan Fest last year in Detroit. Another technology that delivers sound to a highly focused area—but with an even greater gee-whiz factor—is made by Watertown, MA-based Holosonics Research Labs. The company’s Audio Spotlight system uses small discs, mounted on walls or a ceiling, that emit narrow beams of sound—like the light from a flashlight. The beams can be directed at specific people or certain areas of an environment without disturbing anyone nearby. “The speakers are sleek—nearly invisible, and there are no domes,” says Paul Martin, Philadelphia-based agency Sparks’ vp-creative.

More Self-guided Audio

Another gadget making its way into events are handheld, telephone-style speakers, like the ones many museums use for self-guided tours. At the Geneva Auto Show, DaimlerChrysler turned its display into an art exhibit, with its Chrysler Airflite concept car as the main attraction, and other pieces of “art” supporting it. The automaker gave Acoustiguides to members of the media so they could learn about each display by pressing a numbered button on the unit that corresponded with the number on the display.

Better-Designed Audio

For its annual Sapphire customer conference, SAP put the entire event—product presentations, breakouts, and an exhibit space—on one trade-show floor, with nary a wall between the sessions. That, of course, created an audio challenge: Find a way for one audience to hear the speech they were attending without letting the sound bleed into a neighboring presentation.

The solution? Eight-inch by 12-inch speakers were mounted on small stands underneath every other chair in the audience, aiming sound at the person behind that seat.

Enhancing the way audio is delivered might rank low on most event marketers’ priority lists. But whether through high-tech gadgets or just smart design, well-executed soundscapes can make a big difference. Speaking about the sound discs, Sparks’ Martin says: “When they’re projected at you, the sounds seem to be in your head.”