The first fully virtual Arab summit in the metaverseDelivered · 2023 · global attendance
In 2023 an Arab summit took place with no hall to book and no flights to catch. It ran entirely inside a virtual exhibition centre our team helped build and operate: exhibition halls, theatres, meeting rooms and exhibitor-designed branded booths, with attendees joining as avatars from anywhere in the world. That platform is the foundation of Nplay Nexus.
- Client
- Regional summit organiser
- Sector
- Events · Conferences
- Location
- Virtual — attended worldwide
- Scope
- Exhibition halls · theatres · meeting rooms · branded booths
- Year
- 2023
A summit without a venue
Physical summits struggle with the same three things: accessibility, scalability and cost. Delegates need visas and flights, venues have a fixed capacity, and exhibitors pay for a stand that exists for three days. The organiser of a regional Arab summit wanted the reach of the internet with the structure of an exhibition centre — halls to walk, theatres for keynotes, rooms to meet in, and booths that exhibitors could make their own.
The decision was to hold the summit fully virtually — the first Arab summit to do so — inside a 3D virtual exhibition centre. Our team's role was to build the venue and its systems and to help run the event.
A convention centre in the browser
3D venue
A virtual convention centre with a main hall and reception, an auditorium, meeting rooms and a booths area, navigated in a web browser or PC app with a personal avatar.
Theatres and live sessions
Keynotes, panels and workshops streamed live into the auditorium, with recorded sessions available on demand afterwards.
Exhibitor-designed booths
Exhibitors created and customised their own 3D booths — size, colours, logos, documents and posters on booth screens — and staffed them with live chat and a virtual assistant.
Avatars and networking
Every attendee customised an avatar in the dashboard. A social hall with bubble-shaped chat rooms let visitors, speakers and exhibitors meet and exchange business information.
Interactive map and registration
Registration, an in-venue interactive map for navigation, and an administrator dashboard behind it all.
Real-time infrastructure
Real-time communication, WebGL rendering, cloud hosting, a content management system and 3D modelling — the components now productised in Nplay Nexus.
Nplay Nexus →Real-time infrastructureFrom venue design to summit day
Venue design and build
Halls, auditorium, meeting rooms and social hall modelled in 3D and connected to the platform's avatar, chat and streaming systems.
Exhibitor onboarding
Exhibitors given booth-builder access to design, brand and populate their own booths; content reviewed and staged before opening.
Programme set-up
Speakers and sessions scheduled into the theatres; live-stream and on-demand recording configured; registration opened.
Live operation
The summit run live with our team monitoring sessions, booths and attendee support, and content archived for on-demand viewing afterwards.
What the virtual format changed
| Physical summit | Virtual summit in the metaverse |
|---|---|
| Delegates travel to one city | Attendees joined from anywhere in the world as avatars |
| Venue capacity fixed | Venue scaled with the audience |
| Stands built for three days, then discarded | Booths designed once by exhibitors, editable throughout |
| Sessions missed if you were in another hall | Live sessions recorded and available on demand |
| Networking by chance in corridors | A dedicated social hall and chat rooms |
| Carbon footprint of flights and construction | No travel, no build |
Features now in the Nplay Nexus roadmap
- Virtual booth reservation on an interactive map, with payment from the exhibitor's control panel
- Analytics and reporting for exhibitors and speakers — visitors per session and booth, revenue from tickets and products
- In-booth e-commerce so exhibitors sell during the event
- VR access alongside browser and PC
- Hybrid formats — a physical hall with Halo Box hologram links to the virtual venue and Nplay Live streaming to public audiences
Further reading: Khronos OpenXR standard (external source).
Virtual Arab summit: frequently asked questions
Who organised the summit and which platform hosted it?
We keep the organiser and the platform's former name off this site. The summit was a regional Arab summit held fully virtually in 2023 inside a virtual exhibition centre that our team helped build and run; the platform's technology is now offered as Nplay Nexus.
Did attendees need special hardware?
No. The venue ran in a web browser using WebGL, with a PC application and VR as options. Attendees registered, customised an avatar and walked in.
How did exhibitors take part?
Each exhibitor designed a 3D booth — size, colours, logos, documents and posters on screens — and staffed it with live chat and a virtual assistant during the summit.
Is Nplay Nexus available for a virtual event platform in Saudi Arabia today?
Nplay Nexus is in development as a productised platform. Virtual summits, exhibitions and graduations are delivered today as projects on the same technology, from Riyadh and Amman.
Can a virtual summit be hybrid?
Yes. Physical halls can stream into the virtual theatres, and Halo Box hologram stations can bring remote speakers into the physical venue.
Keep exploring
Hold your next summit without a venue
Tell us the programme, the exhibitor count and the audience. We will propose the virtual venue, the booth plan and how we run the live days.