While many event platforms are currently focusing on virtual and hybrid events, collaborative event planning platform OnePlan is facilitating the return to live music and sporting events. Earlier this year, it launched Venue Twin, an interactive solution that allows event organizers to view full 3D versions of their venues online, which has been particularly valuable throughout the past few months.
“The pandemic has really accelerated technology development,” shares Paul Foster, Founder of OnePlan. “We had been planning to launch Venue Twin in two or three years’ time, but we brought it forward very quickly following the demand from clients and the array of different use cases that were hitting us right in the face.”
International sports federations, he notes, can’t travel to all the countries where they may be having events — and some venues were even being used as Covid hospitals at the time when they would need to be doing site visits, making it very difficult to plan for a sporting event layout.
In response to these challenges, Venue Twin “built out a 3D visualization of the venue so they could do site visits together, walk around the venue, and get a feel for how they were going to plan things out,” says Foster.
Following its $3.8 million investment back in June, OnePlan has been growing its team and is now used in over 50 countries. Venue Twin — which integrates with OnePlan but is a higher-end product — is currently being used by several venues, including the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, a potential FIFA World Cup venue for 2026.
“The old stadium is getting a lot of upgrades,” explains Foster, “and they were able to show FIFA what the venue would look like. FIFA did all those site visits in Venue Twin remotely without ever going to the venue.”
Foster notes that Venue Twin is not simply a render, it’s a fully interactive digital twin of the venue. “In Venue Twin, we can simulate every individual light to understand what it would look like. We can change the time of day, test camera positions, sit in all the seats, and look at things from different angles.”
This tech is particularly useful for other types of events that may be taking place in the venue, such as concerts, as it allows organizers to place the staging and different lighting and equipment to see how it would look and figure out which seats will be obstructed. Venue Twin’s enhanced seat view also creates a better experience for fans by allowing them to access a more immersive and realistic view of the venue when selecting their seats.
Although much of the world is still facing travel restrictions, platforms like OnePlan and Venue Twin have proven that travel and its accompanying expenses may not be as necessary as it once was — even beyond the pandemic. “Right now, people can’t really travel, but organizations are realizing that they don’t need to travel,” says Foster. “Finance directors are wondering why they aren’t doing this for every venue. They will still do site visits, but only when it gets much closer to an event.” That’s particularly true now, when many larger venues are still being repurposed as hospitals, making site visits impossible.
Venue Twin also has use cases for conferences that are hoping to provide more information on Covid procedures to attendees. Foster shares that they are working with a conference facility to map the venue and show attendees, prior to their arrival, where they do a PCR test, where they pick up their badge, etc. “They're using it to build confidence in people so that they become familiar with unfamiliar surroundings, particularly when there's additional checks for Covid,” he says.
Organizers can produce a public version of Venue Twin in which they can limit where people can explore and create a specific journey for them to take to get acclimated to the process before the event, and even include sponsorship opportunities
Foster emphasizes that OnePlan and Venue Twin’s end goal is to get people back into venues. “We're not a virtual conferencing facility, and we do not want to replace live events,” he says. Venue Twin is yet another example of event tech that has been accelerated by the pandemic but will remain a key tool for events and venues moving forward.