Events technology can help the industry build back stronger, creating unique experiences which strengthen relationships, boost brand awareness and generate renewed affinity with delegates – whether they’re showing up in-person, online, or in-between, says Vanessa Lovatt
We may finally be on the road to post-Covid-19 recovery, but for the events industry, we have arrived at a significant crossroads.
While certain types of event – live sports, music festivals, even politically-orientated gatherings – look like a pretty safe bet to bounce back in the months ahead, the future is far less clear within the world of company events.
This is largely due to fundamental changes in our working habits. The truth is that, after becoming accustomed to working from home in recent months, employees will inevitably attend the office less frequently in future, while many will be less willing to travel on public transport.
Even once everyone has been vaccinated, concerns around new strains of the virus, risks to health and safety, and the need to continue social distancing, will continue to have an impact on how we work. Not only this, but employee and company willingness to travel and be in large gatherings is likely to be low for the foreseeable.
Right now thousands of company events planners are busy trying to adapt to this future. The challenge is how to create events – from major customer-focused seminars to employee training sessions – that make in-person and online attendees feel equally included, able to participate and, ultimately, to take away the same value.
Enter the ‘hybrid’ event
There’s no doubt that a well-executed event is still a brilliant and unique way to engage an audience: they make people feel inspired while learning about the latest developments in their industry or as they acquire new skills.
Hence what we’re seeing is the rise of the ‘hybrid’ event, using technology to try and ensure a meaningful events experience for everyone, irrespective of how attendees have chosen to show up.
However, getting this approach right isn’t easy. I’ve spoken about the challenges of encouraging in-person attendance. But we’re also in a climate in which more people are complaining about endless video calls; in which there are thousands of different digital events, fireside chats, forums, meetups and hang-outs all instantly available at the click of a button, and yet there are no more hours in the working day.
We’ve already seen plenty of evidence regarding the limitations of virtual events. In 2020, thousands of corporate in-person events were hastily ported over to digital as a knee-jerk reaction to Covid-19. By May 2020, virtual events were up by 1,000 percent, and yet many organisations struggled to offer a positive, consistent audience experience, while suffering problems with connectivity, event format and participation levels.
What we have learned as we pursue a post-COVID landscape is how essential it is to adopt an ‘experience-first’ mindset when planning events, with the emphasis on ensuring everyone involved feels equally activated and emotionally engaged.
Use technology to unify and captivate
The key to delivering a successful event in the months ahead will be to utilise digital technology specifically designed to create memorable audience experiences. Technology that doesn’t just provide a virtual venue, but which allows the event organiser to enhance the fundamental events programme.
A good tech platform should offer a suite of tools which unify the experience for both in-person and online attendees. For example, live streaming video content helps to guarantee that everyone sees and experiences the same session. Similarly, creating a digital lobby makes it easier for all attendees to navigate the event and access the information they need to plan their day.
People can then move around the event as they wish – in-person or online – and watch and interact with presentations in real-time, or enter booths and breakout spaces optimised for maximum participation. Everyone has access to the same content in its intended format and the same ability to get involved.
Taking this tech-driven approach has the added bonus of opening up each event to the world, giving hundreds or even thousands of additional attendees who might not have previously taken part the opportunity to attend. It also creates more of an opportunity for the organisers to host additional pre, during and post event digital activities to keep people hooked for longer.
Build on the user experience
Companies can build on this with additional digital engagement tools, including tests, quizzes, polls and games, which feed directly into presentations so that they’re equally available to all attendees. There’s nothing worse than joining an event remotely only to hear ‘…in the next session we’re going to ask everyone in the room to answer a series of questions, so put up your hands if…’. Technology can put engagement with the entire audience – not just in-person attendees – at the heart of each event.
Then of course there’s ensuring ease of accessibility. In the old days, this was a case of making sure that attendees knew which tube station to get off at, or that all of the laminated name badges were pre-printed and ready at reception. Today it’s about making events instantly accessible on desktops, tablets and smartphones, via weblink or QR code, without having to download yet more software to sit alongside the suite of existing video call apps. These functionalities need to be fully-integrated into the platform itself, to enable live streaming, instant slide-sharing, even real-time translation for events in multiple languages, all while maintaining top-flight security protocols.
Take ownership of the event
The best events have always tended to be the ones where companies have really been able to ‘own’ the space, creating a more immersive brand experience rather than just hiring someone’s venue and showing up on the day. This rings truer than ever when dealing with the digital component of events, as the different events tech platforms offer radically different levels of customisation and overall ownership. Some will allow companies to brand every aspect of the event – in effect making it feel as though they own the virtual venue – whereas with others, they’ll have to play second fiddle to the tech provider’s own brand.
The same is true when it comes to attendee data. A lot of tech platforms are seeking ownership of, or at the very least access to, all of the registered attendee profiles for every single event held on their platform. It’s always worth doing homework on each tech platform to fully understand how much event ‘ownership’ will be retained by the organiser and how much will be ceded to the tech provider.
Understand the attendee journey
One of the biggest advantages of digital events technology is that it can give organisers access to powerful analytics and metrics around how each event has performed – not just who has shown up, but how people have interacted and engaged with the event, which sessions proved the most valuable, what the main take-outs were for attendees etc. In fact, some platforms can actually track each attendees’ journey through the event – from what they downloaded, if they took notes during sessions, and the sessions they attended, to those who were clearly only there in (virtual) body and showed low levels of participation. In comparison, at in-person events you would sometimes know as little as whether or not somebody turned up, and nothing more than that.
As a result, companies who build their ‘hybrid’ events on the right digital platform will be able to access previously untapped insights into their audiences, which will be vital in reconnecting with customers, partners and other stakeholders after the disruption of the pandemic. It also means they can broaden their efforts to improve the attendee journey for any future events being held, helping to guarantee that attendees enjoy a cohesive, end-to-end events experience, from showing up to signing out.
The pandemic has disrupted company events of all sizes and formats, and across all locations. Yet it has also paved the way for a new era of positive change in how we build successful events, one that is not dictated by either tradition or technology, but that is built upon empowering experienced events planners, giving them access to a raft of new audience engagement tools and techniques.
In this way, events technology can help the company events industry build back stronger, creating unique experiences which strengthen relationships, boost brand awareness and generate renewed affinity with customers, parents, investors and employees – whether they’re showing up in-person, online or in-between.
Vanessa Lovatt is Chief Evangelist at Glisser, which is a global leader in hybrid and virtual events. An experienced virtual event professional, Vanessa ensures that customers maximise their ROI from the Glisser platform.
Since 2010, Vanessa has held Managing Director positions at various events and digital community companies, spanning virtual, hybrid and in-person events.
Glisser saw platform usage increase by 9,876% from January 2020 to December 2020 as COVID increased its global grip. In addition, annual license sales increased from 320% from Q1 to Q4 2020.
