How Meta's Ray-Ban glasses will shape the future of experiential marketing
seeing live events through a WHOLE new lens
Meta recently dropped their new Ray-Ban Display glasses at Meta Connect 2025, and everyone's freaking out. But what does this actually mean for those of us planning events?
At Proscenium, we’re constantly thinking about how new technology affects the live events industry. And here's what I think.
While social media is feeding fancy AR demos that make it seem like everyone will be wearing these in a few months, I’m here to cut through the hype and determine whether these glasses will truly change how attendees experience your next conference or meeting. Before diving in, for those who only caught clips of Mark Zuckerberg's product demo fails on stage, let me share the genuinely impressive features this product claims to offer:
- A built-in display that shows notifications, directions, and captions right in your field of vision
- Real-time translation capabilities with captions
- Integrated Meta AI that understands what you're looking at
- Hands-free POV video recording with a convenient built-in viewfinder
- The Neural Band wristband that enables control through subtle hand gestures (straight out of science fiction)
Look, the tech is impressive and all, but let's be real about what's actually useful for event professionals right now.
Before you pitch this to your boss...
Let's take a realistic look at these features before revamping our event strategies:
- Translation services: Yeah, it's cool, but most attendees won't have these glasses yet, so this is a nice-to-have, not a complete solution for your next global or multilingual event. (Hot take: AirPods will probably mainstream audio translation with their latest update before glasses do.)
- Event navigation: Sounds amazing, right? Except it only works outdoors in certain cities right now. That dream of guiding people straight to Booth 432? Not happening yet.
- Messaging: WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram show up in your view, but no iMessage. So you're missing a huge chunk of your attendees' preferred messaging platform.
Look, I get tempted to pitch shiny new tech to my clients at Proscenium all the time, but let's be real, we need to dig into what actually works before getting anyone's hopes up.
The sleeper hit feature no one's talking about
Here's the thing most people are missing: the killer feature isn't some new tech. It's the mainstream adoption of POV video capture.
Think about it: The old Ray-Bans with cameras? Those were mostly for content creators and tech nerds. But these new ones have enough useful features that regular folks might actually buy them. Suddenly your average attendee becomes a content machine.
This is huge for event design:
- You'll get way more attendees capturing walkthrough videos of your show floor
- Every keynote, product reveal, and activation gets documented from dozens of perspectives
- Content sharing shifts from just the pros to everyday participants
Best part? POV content solves that classic "I hate being on camera" problem. When you're capturing POV, you're never in the shot! That makes content creation way more comfortable for the average attendee.
Smart event marketers need to start designing with this in mind, like, yesterday.
Stuff you can actually do right now
Want to jump on this? Here's what works today:
- Use WhatsApp and Messenger as well as other notification platforms for your event communications since those will pop up right in attendees' view who have AR glasses.
- Create "POV-worthy" moments throughout your event that look amazing from first-person. Less selfie walls, more immersive experiences!
- Get creative with visual prompts that guide attendees to use Meta AI. Think signage like "Ask AI to create lyrics about [your name] visiting [conference name] and what you learned today." Fun stuff that works right now and not exclusive to AR glasses.
No need to wait for future updates – this all works today.
What's Next (And It's Coming Fast!)
The real revolution happens when we get a third-party app store. Once developers can build their own stuff (which is already in the works), we'll see:
- Custom in-venue navigation
- Personalized notifications about your specific agenda
- Interactive booth experiences that trigger when you look at them
My guess is, this ecosystem will develop much faster than the iPhone app store did. Remember, it took only 18 months from the iPhone's launch to the App Store opening, and Mark Zuckerberg has already announced a developer kit for the new devices. We're looking at months, not years, before this platform truly expands.
Look, I'm genuinely pumped to see how this tech reshapes our event playbook. At Proscenium, we're already brainstorming ways to leverage these glasses that'll make our clients' events pop in ways nobody's even imagining yet. While it's still early days for AR glasses in the events space, there are clear opportunities to start experimenting now. The truly revolutionary applications may still be months away, but smart event marketers should be preparing for this shift today rather than playing catch-up tomorrow.
👉 Bottom line for event marketers: While everyone else is daydreaming about full AR, your immediate opportunity is designing for the wave of POV content coming from regular attendees. This isn't future talk – it's happening now.
Questions worth asking: How would your event look different if designed to be captured from first-person? What experiences would make attendees naturally want to hit record and share what they're seeing?
If you like this, check out some of my other event tech content:
