It’s The Economy Stupid
I could break into a chorus of “The Way We Were,” but anyone analyzing the cost of live events is going to have a hard time making the numbers tell a pretty story. The cost of flying anywhere has hit the stratospheric mark. The average attendee who goes to an event is probably going to pay something over $1,000 for a flight. There’s a good likelihood there will be delays and cancellations. Even a three-star hotel is going to cost upwards of $300 a night. Car service or rental adds another few hundred. This means that the average attendee is going to spend $3,500 in travel, plus rising costs in food and drinks before they even buy your event ticket. And you know event tickets will be more expensive because the costs of logistics, setup, food, and tech have also skyrocketed.

In response many businesses are freezing their travel budgets, which translates to fewer people being able to attend an in-person event. On the other hand, true hybrid events, meaning events with virtual and in-person components that are held simultaneously, put pressure on staff resources and your budget. Further, while virtual events are more cost effective and easier for attendees and exhibitors, we are still not able to prove that they really deliver. 

The Temporal Answer
The opportunity lies in deconstructing and reconstructing what is an event and literally thinking about time differently. Like a baseball game, some will want their experience live, some will want to watch at home and some just want the highlights or reruns. Some (like me) just want the commercials. And others would rather be having a new baseball metaverse experience. They need not all happen at the same time. 

The other thing we’re teasing out is how to infuse the traditional elements of events with tech-forward tools, tools that have mostly been born out of necessity during the pandemic. Like a good jazz composition, we’re going to be riffing on many different variations of the theme. 

Bizzabo’s recent research found that relatively few organizers take advantage of the long tail an event can have. One third of survey respondents in their poll say they only allow access to virtual or hybrid content during the event itself. We’d add that even fewer snip up and edit their sessions to use as sales materials for future events, social awareness, and growing an audience that might only be interested in the highlight reel.

The skill sets required are also shapeshifting. BizBash and MediaSite report that nearly 50% of event managers find their biggest pain points are increasingly complicated tech stacks and a lack of video skills.
Image credit: BizBash and MediaSite

The Marriage of Virtual and Live 
Before the pandemic a simple recording of every in-person session was a step forward, but the sessions were often under utilized. XLiveglobal argues that virtual event tech, in particular apps and video libraries, have infiltrated live events. So has live Q&A and chat.

Bizzabo recently studied how virtual programming tools are being adopted at live events.

Before the event

At the event itself

This Forbes.com article looks at how the technologies used in virtual events are finding their way into live events. IRL conferences and meetings now have shorter sessions and more social interaction, directly attributable to habits learned during the pandemic. They found that organizations want speakers who are skilled in the art of storytelling and can also engage with the audience, drawing them into the conversation.

Speaker bureaus and agencies are fielding requests for speakers to appear at both the in-person event along with a follow-up for a wider virtual audience. Plus they’re also seeing the booking process compressing. Pre-pandemic you had a six- to nine-month booking window. It’s now shrinking to as little as 8 to 12 weeks.

BizBash/MediaSite noticed that event planners are adopting tools that reinforce an attendee’s opportunities to meet and communicate with other participants.
Image credit: BizBash and MediaSite. 

Tech First
Paddy Cosgrove, the mastermind behind the Collision Conference and Web Summit, is a master salesman. I’ve watched him milk the FOMO narrative to the max with a great speaker lineup, a wide variety of attractive pricing for startups, and targeted campaigns to move you through early bird savings to “we’re almost sold out” demand. 

But the real secret sauce according to this LinkedIn post by Cosgrove is technology. “For some of our first staff we hired software engineers and physicists, rather than event planners, and made network science central to absolutely everything we do. We’ve developed our own software in-house to power our events. We obsessed over the tiniest details of our events, from the font on our name badges to the queuing systems for attendees“ he says. A tech-centric strategy paid off. “For us at Web Summit our near (pandemic) bust is now a new boom. Our revenue by the end of 2021 grew, compared to 2020, by 83 percent, which is faster than at any previous point in our history.” Read more about the tech forward approach in this press release.

Leon the Avatar
Publicis brilliantly announced its company’s new metaverse officer, Leon Avatar. Hear him roar. 

Inclusivity at Events
Friend of VEG Kristin Gutekunst had these hands-on tips after completing a successful Expo Dubai.

Tools to Get Psyched Over
Thanks to Gigi Johnson for the tip about using BlueScape. Have you ever lived inside your whiteboard? And thanks to Alfred Poor for discovering Engage, a new sort of metaverse made of interconnected links of metaworlds.