As a photo business, you always want to catch up with events, news, and trends surrounding your professional path. The pandemic has made it easier to attend events on the one hand, because many take place virtually nowadays. On the other hand, it is impossible to be there everywhere. You couldn’t attend Visual1st ‘21? ip.labs has got you covered. Read more about this leading-edge photo conference.
Exciting Program & Guests with an Eye for Innovation
Visual 1st is one of the biggest global summits that focuses on innovation and partnerships in the photo and video ecosystem, bringing together executives and entrepreneurs from photo and video app development startup companies, photo businesses, software companies, print product providers, and many more. ip.labs was delighted to attend this years' symposium.
The program of the event included three categories of activities:
Comprehensive engaging discussions – no PowerPoints, instead- there was active audience participation moderated by industry experts
Demos with live app demos in several fast-paced sessions
Networking – a special part of the program, where all attendees could connect with partners virtually. During the conference, a private and all attendee chat were created and on top of that, there were virtual roundtable discussions in breakout rooms. A special event platform made connecting as real as it can be in a virtual surrounding!
What Stood Out to Us: Impressions & Learnings
Amongst the numerous topics discussed, the ones related to how businesses deal with the challenges of Covid-19 and how, contrary to some beliefs, the pandemic situation had opened a few new business models, has surprised us the most. The pandemic provided businesses in imaging new ways to collaborate. This is one of the many outstanding characteristics of the Visual1st summit, as it encourages networking and mutual support.
After the event, the ip.labs team which had attended the summit, was delighted with the new information, pleasant experience and new connections. A few matters of discussion have indeed left a strong impact on our crew members. For instance, even though artificial intelligence is still an important topic in the space, it is not hyped as much any more compared to recent years. On another note, it is more than evident that technology is playing a role in many aspects of the photo industry to improve usability and use cases like image enhancement or AI-based product photography. What appeared to be genuinely interesting, is that mobile apps in the photo space are there to stay. However, web solutions are gaining traction, as some startups have begun to provide solutions via the web, which has not been possible yet without native apps. Another thought-provoking idea from the conference was the current situation of the photo print industry – it is not growing any longer via big players, but the solution diversifies to fulfil the needs of mid-size and small businesses via cloud printers.
To sum up, Visual1st 2021 was, again, as exciting as it was informative. The participants were engaged in dynamic discussions about the photo print industry, have established new connections between each other and received great amounts of useful information, which had made this whole experience impactful and motivational. The ip.labs team is definitely looking forward to the event next year and hopes it will take place live this time.
