In a post earlier in 2021, I noted that I am available to attend or participate in in-person events. In this post I'll share my thoughts on virtual events and why it's really going to take a special virtual event to get my attention.
The Move to Virtual
As I noted in that post, until recently my last in-person event was the AIIM20 conference in Dallas, TX. That was one of the last in-person industry events before COVID shut us all down. But even in a pandemic, there's still a need for education, and for developing or honing skills, and to satisfy that need for basic human interaction. I'm an introvert, so my day-to-day didn't really change that much, but I know extroverts in particular were heavily impacted by the loss of face-to-face interaction.
So we all went virtual. Our kids attended virtual school, many of us worked from home and interacted with our colleagues virtually, and events all went virtual. Virtual satisfied the need for interaction and to get things done - most of the time, some of the way. Local association chapters found that by making their events virtual and open to all, they were significantly increasing their attendance. Some associations found that reduced-price tickets and the convenience of virtual attendance resulted in decent revenue, especially compared to the alternative of canceling events altogether.
The Event Planner's Perspective
Virtual events still require similar amounts of planning as their in-person counterparts. While the logistics required are different, they are no less important to ensure an optimal user experience. Presentations have to be planned, practiced, and, often, recorded and uploaded. The platform has to be tested for capabilities and under load. Vendors have to be set up in the expo floor or its equivalent. Etc.
It's also very difficult to justify charging in-person pricing for a virtual event - and this applies to attendees and sponsors alike. I'll look at this from each of those perspectives shortly.
The Vendors' Perspective
Depending on the conference, it's not uncommon for vendors to spend tens to hundreds of thousands or more to gain notice and attention from the attendees. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Booths - the cost of the booth, the cost of the amenities and tchotchkes, and definitely the cost of staff to work the booth.
- Onsite events like team dinners, client dinners, happy hours
- Sponsorship opportunities - the lanyards, the bags, printed brochures and data sheets, lunch and refreshment breaks, and the list goes on, only limited by the creativity of the event planners.
The idea is that you're planting your logo and tagline in attendees' heads, and, ideally, having conversations that can lead ultimately to sales.
In a virtual setting, this looks a little different - there is a booth, but there aren't really tchotchkes or amenities, and staff costs are definitely cheaper, if only due to travel costs. No onsite events to pay for. And the sponsorships are much more limited (though again not nothing).
So how does this translate to mindshare and conversations? The plural of anecdotes is not data, but I have heard anecdotally from a number of vendors that they really don't get the same types of value as they do from in-person. Some of this is on them, but I think some of it is that you don't have that dynamic of someone walking by, they see something interesting (which could be your trade swag), and they stop to have a conversation. Attendees have to make the positive decision to click a vendor's virtual booth and engage the team.
The Attendees' Perspective
Different attendees have different needs and expectations from an event. Setting aside potential sightseeing and junket reasoning, we can sort attendees into a couple of non-exclusive groupings:
- People new to an organization, role, or profession who need basic education and orientation
- More experienced people looking for specific learning content
- More experienced people looking to solve a specific business problem and looking to identify solutions that can do so
- People with stories to share. This isn't necessarily limited to speakers, but speakers definitely fall into this group.
- Long-time community members who go because they always do and are expected to.
- Networking with like-minded people - renewing old acquaintances and making new ones
The first four groups may be able to get what they need from a well-planned virtual event. Virtual events can be pretty good at providing different levels of content focusing on different angles and issues. Motivated attendees can probably get some solution-focused information and demos, scripted as well as more flexible.
But the events, and the platforms, vary wildly in their capabilities and how well they leverage them for the last two groups. I attended a virtual conference earlier this year where there were after-hours events scheduled, via Zoom, but the setup was such that there was almost no interactivity available between the attendees. The conference app didn't really provide any capabilities to interact either.
Some events have tried to leverage some mix of pre-recorded and live sessions. For the pre-recorded sessions, some events have asked the speaker(s) to engage with attendees and their questions and comments in a chat stream. And sometimes that happens! But that's a lot of "some" and "sometimes".
The conference aspect that I'm most looking for, and missing in a virtual environment, is the serendipitous meeting. That is, I can run into someone between sessions, or at a scheduled networking event, or at the hotel bar, etc. I can see someone across the room and wave them over to introduce them to someone I think they should know. While in-person events have schedules, there's no schedule or specific end time in the hotel lobby or while wandering around town looking for dinner.
But in a virtual environment, networking sessions have schedules and they end at the scheduled end time. And I haven't really seen a platform yet that made it easy for attendees to continue conversations in that unstructured sort of way. I know some events have started to look at 3D / virtual reality-type platforms, but I don't think that addresses that idea of serendipity and the types of tangential directions those conversations can take. I attended the InfoGovWorld Conference and Expo in September 2021 and it was probably the best application of virtual reality I've seen in a conference setting, but it still didn't really address chance meetings and the creative synergy they can spark. Avatars are also terrible at reproducing human interaction - facial expressions, body language, etc. just aren't really available.
Aside: Why is movement still so jerky and painful in 3D conference platforms? I play World of Warcraft way more than I probably need to, and movement is fluid and realistic and has been for more than a decade. I think Blizzard Entertainment might be missing a trick - set up a VR conferencing solution with a business-oriented Barber Chair and transmogrification gear and charge $50/attendee. Give me a way to present as well using built-in audiovisual tools, and I'd pay twice that per attendee.
Conclusion
The first conference to figure out the serendipitous networking thing will make a mint. If you know of one that's doing it right, let me know - even if it's not in this industry - so I can check the platform out. But until I find that elusive unicorn, I'll continue to take my convalescent, vaccinated, precautions-taken chances at live events.
Update 1/3/2022: Changed reference to "earlier this year" to "2021".
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