Interview
Pioneering 3D insights into the venue world
VFLOORPLAN CEO AND FOUNDER STEVEN MARKHAM DROPPED BY OUR LONDON OFFICES RECENTLY TO TALK ABOUT THE NEW, VERSION 5 OF HIS COMPANY’ S 3D, WEB-BASED VENUE FLOORPLAN AND ITS ABLITY TO BOOST LEAD GENERATION FOR BOOKERS LOOKING TO FIND THE RIGHT ROOMS FOR THEIR EVENTS
U K-based vFloorplan founder
and CEO Steven Markham has had a passion for electronics and innovation from a young age. He started in programming in the 1980’ s, moving into building new 3D technology, having always had a strong interest in visualising buildings digitally. In 1997 he founded Cubicspace where his development team created the first real-time rendering plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max, used by architects and film studios worldwide.
Cubicspace continued to develop exciting tools and configurator projects for industry, and Steve Baker joined in 2007 as lead programmer( subsequently CTO) and with Steven Markham led the develeopment of‘ vFloorplan’ which
Above: Steven Markham
“ Tailored for sales teams, it’ s designed to convert curiosity into confirmed leads”
was spun off into a company in its own right in 2014 and has been used by conference centres, hotels, and stadiums to help them showcase their complex venues more clearly.
“ We noticed most venue floorplans and websites were hard to interpret, outdated, or just not helping sales teams get enquiries. That led us to evolve vFloorplan into an interactive, 3D searchable tool that is added to the venue website, that planners can then use to explore a venue with confidence,” Markham explains.
How, I asked, had he built up his contacts and marketing list? After joining the Entrepreneurs’ Circle in Birmingham in 2012, Markham says they encouraged him to draw up a ' dreamlist ' of customers, in which there were 200 venues including the QEII Centre, which in 2015 became a client after a multi-way pitch – and is still a client today. Their historic client list has included Arsenal FC, The National Conference Centre, Horizon Convention Centre( US), Murrayfield Experience, Grand Connaught Rooms, Tower Hotel and Century Center South Bend, US, to name a few.
Now the team has developed a new version of vFloorplan 3D for QEII.“ With this latest version, we know more visionary venues will want to lead the way too for their venues,” says Markham, adding:“ We started with turning static black-and-white floorplans into colourful 3D visuals, then adding interactivity, an instant search tool, a way to make enquiries from within vFloorplan, and now, with version 5, a fully real-time interactive experience.”
London QEII Centre’ s version 5 offers real-time movement of the building and floors, and a zoom feature that flies users directly into any room they select and includes a way to move the building and each room around in real-time in any direction. QEII Centre head of marketing James Bogle says the venue has used vFloorplan for
24 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / ISSUE 137