ArmInfo. This October, for the first time in Armenia, an event in meta-reality (virtual reality) will be held - the Metaverse Expo-Festival (meta + universe), which will open up new opportunities for Armenian manufacturers and the tourism industry to present their products and services to business representatives and visitors from all over the world, excluding any kind of restriction.
The initiators of establishing such a Metaverse environment were the Eventtoura company, the organizer of the already traditional and beloved in the capital holiday, "Wine Days". Technological support was provided by the Armenian company PANDA MR, which develops platforms for virtual meetings.
The expediency of holding such an event in a completely new format for Armenia arose with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. As Director of Eventtoura Meri Badalyan noted, in 2020, when the pandemic was announced, it became clear that it was impossible to hold the Wine Days Festival in the usual format and scale. Therefore, as a result of lengthy discussions, research on global trends, changes in the digital world, the idea arose of holding events in virtual reality, which is already used in the world and is quite cost-effective from a financial point of view.
Answering a question from an ArmInfo correspondent, Mary Badalyan said that the expo-exhibition in the virtual space, as well as the Yerevan Vine Days festival with more than 100 pavilions, info centers, conference halls for meetings, lecture halls will be held on Saryan, Moskovyan and Tumanyan streets. The exhibition is divided into 3 segments: producers of alcoholic beverages, food and tourism industry. The main goal of the event is to stimulate exports and increase the recognition of Armenia. according to the concept, it is planned that only domestic producers will take part in the metafestival in the first 3 years on a free basis. Over time, the involvement of foreign manufacturers is not excluded. For visitors, depending on the purpose of the visit, there is a fee of $10 to $50.
"We expect that 70% of the visitors will be business representatives who will take part in B2B meetings, the other B2C will be more focused on the tourism segment," she said.
The Metaverse is a world in which virtual objects that do not exist in reality merge with completely physical things and events within a single platform, ecosystem.
PandaMR is part of SoftConstruct, a company dedicated designs, manages and invests in next- generation ideas and projects.
PandaMR recreates the global events industry in the virtual space, removing time and space barriers, bringing together conference organizers, events, industries and their perspectives, bypassing geographic, temporal and other restrictions.
