Collision Conference 2022
With the world becoming more “normal” and things returning to how they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, I had the pleasure of attending the Collision Conference in Toronto this past June.
This marks the conference’s first event since 2019 and it was jam-packed with vendors, inspirational talks, speakers, and attendees all wanting to learn the latest in technology, finance, business, development, and design. The conference had over 35K attendees and 250 partnered brands, which included Amazon AWS, RBC, Interac, Google, Government of Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and TikTok to name a few. Collision conference is for a wide range of attendees from all disciplines. This event has specific tracks for designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and sports business enthusiasts. It also attracts big speakers and celebrities such as Tony Khan, AEW president, NBA Stars Carmelo Anthony, former UFC Champions Georges St.Pierre, Cris Cyborg, and even the Brampton Batman! It seems that Collision is for people from all walks of life.
The conference attracts the big players in the tech space but also smaller startups and businesses that are in Alpha and Beta. There are many reasons to attend Collision. The first is that it is a great place to network with so many people and vendors and strike up possible activations and partnerships. The second reason and one of the most important reasons is that Collision offers many amazing learning opportunities from industry leaders with all the latest and greatest trends happening right now in technology. Collision also offers great exposure for brands and potential lead generation for sales.
Notable talks have been with NBA’s SVP of Gaming, Scott Kaufmann Ross, who spoke about enhancing the fan experience more with VR and AR technology, immersing fans into a locked-in reality where data and analytics can help better drive the experience. Visualization and data interpretation will be key for this. From this talk, we learned that the NBA is already thinking about marketing to Gen Z, the digital spaces those users live in, and how watching games will change from an in-person/arena experience to more of the home-living room or digital experience. Another insight from this conference was how brands have to use analytics or think differently compared to their competitors to have a unique or competitive advantage in their market space. The Professional Fight League (PFL) has introduced the SMART CAGE which collects and analyzes fight metrics like never before which gives fans, analysts broadcasters, and even the athletes insights into the sport that were never measured or broadcasted out. This was the concept brought on by PFL president Donn Davis. A big idea of the way in which sports or data are covered will adjust to where fans or users spend a majority of their time. Mobile views or shortening/highlights will increase in popularity, as we have seen with Sport NFTs or what the PFL tracks in social posts.
Collision Conference 2022 was a hit, to say the least. With the return of in-person events and the amount of information that was shared during this conference from all attendees, vendors, and exhibitors, it looks like Collision will be back bigger than ever next year… provided we are not dealing with another lockdown. Hopefully, I can attend 2023 and continue to share the latest and greatest in technology, sports marketing, and design.
