The New Normal at Business Events
I recently moderated a SACEOS webinar on the topic of Igniting Virtual & Hybrid Events: Rethinking the Experience. We had speakers from Alibaba Cloud & BlueJeans joining in. We had a pretty decent turnout with the audience coming in primarily from Singapore and Southeast Asia. Everybody tuning in was a professional from the Business Events industry.
It was a fantastic opportunity to get the sentiment from fellow industry professionals through live polling. So, that’s what we did. The first question we asked was:
Would you travel to attend a physical conference in October 2020?
Bearing in mind that October 2020 was almost 6 months away, still over 40% responded that they would choose not to attend the event physically.
The full results:
For those who are open to attending physically, it is imperative that relevant safety measures are put into place by organisers and venues to give them enough confidence to go to events.
For those who are not open to attending physically, the overwhelming majority would like to join virtually.
So, the new normal for business events:
Hybrid events, with safety measures at physical premise
And indeed, that already seems to be common knowledge. When we asked our audience:
Are you planning on transforming your future events into a Hybrid model?
Over 92% responded that they are planning on transforming their events into a Hybrid model:
It seems that the vast majority of organisers are still new to digital events and are still in the learning and exploration phase.
As we go through these tough moments amid the COVID-19 crisis, from a business events perspective it does make sense for you to start exploring what we call Digital (or Virtual, if you prefer) events. It does not necessarily matter whether you believe in Digital Events or not. When live physical events are back, you will need to have a digital component to it.
Get ready for the new normal.
I encourage you to download the full insights document from SACEOS at: https://bit.ly/VirtualandHybridEventsInsights
ASEAN Go-To-Market, Campaign & B2B Marketing @ Microsoft | Field Marketing, Product Marketing, Partner Development
4 年What will be really interesting is how sponsors are going to view virtual events since the returns will be measured differently from a physical event. The challenge is not about how to run a virtual event...that will be resolved with time but it will be how the experience is going to be differentiated, how much to charge for virtual ticket. Virtual or even Hybrid cannot be trying to recover the sunk cost of a physical event. Perhaps a possible future topic to explore!
PMO - Scrum Master | Certified Scrum Master?
4 年Very insightful data. Most of the companies are going to follow the Hybrid model to escape from Bio wars in the future. Few companies have already started Hybrid Model either by promoting through Instagram live sessions, via Microsoft Teams to organize special events and meetings, live youtube streaming, and other ways. This pandemic is going to bring a change in the digital era.
Tech Training Evangelist
4 年Very astute and revealing insights. The numbers reflect a clear shift of paradigm.
Senior Director Corporate Partnerships| EdTech| INSEAD Alum| Trusted Advisor| Innovation
4 年Interesting insights and thanks Veemal Gungadin for sharing. As someone who has worked in the industry in the past, I can imagine the challenges with physical events now. The silver lining could be that when things get back to normalcy, the event industry will have more options to offer - physical/hybrid/completely online and thus creating additional sources of revenue. The audiences will also hopefully get used to a paid model in all these options Yogesh Mudras Michael Duck