Event Tech, says author Miguel Neves in this issue of Skift, is getting walloped, but no more or less so than the rest of the tech industry. Despite the thirst to go back to live, other complex factors such as the economic downturn, COVID and the War in Ukraine are creating a sort of perfect storm for the entire events industry. 

• Zoom’s shares (ZM), he points out, which were trading just above $90 before the pandemic, are now hovering around $120. This is way down from a high of $599 in October of 2020. 
• Cvent (CVT), event tech’s largest player, went public for a second time in November 2021 with its shares priced at $10. Now, it’s trading under $5. 
• ON24 (ONTF) is a company that supported virtual events long before the Covid pandemic. It announced an initial public offering in February 2021 with shares priced at $50 — they are now worth less than $12. 

In-person events may be back, but attendance for most business events is stuck at two-thirds of 2019 levels or lower. The upside to the Skift story? We have mastered new skills that will help evolve the events business.

Harvard Business Review Looks at the New Skill Set for Events Planners

Harvard Business Review (sponsored content) took a good look at new event strategies, finding they’ve become more holistic, and more open to experimentation. The report, dryly called “Aligning Strategy, Teams and Tech for Success in a New Era of Events,” is the work of a new CMO Council report created in association with Cvent. The study queried marketing leaders about this new era and uncovered several insights:

• 60% of surveyed leaders say restarting in-person and hybrid events is very important, even critical

• 65% say insights from the first two years of the pandemic will lead to a more holistic view of events that are better aligned to marketing outcomes

• 71% of marketers are experimenting with new event formats

Marketers will work more closely with traditional event planners, choosing the best platforms for the best outcomes. And now that teams realize the wide reach and relative ease of virtual events platforms, they’re going to have to become more confident in their ability to execute them well.

The Nightmare of Travel 

The editors at Skift reported live from Orlando on the 50th annual Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC). The report is grimmer than you might have read elsewhere. The Labor Department reports that the hospitality industry is down by 315,000 line-level workers since before the pandemic. But according to Mike Blake, Chief Technology Officer at the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the real number is more like 1.7 million. And attendees of conferences are not booking in advance like they used to, making it harder for the hospitality industry to plan. The article goes on to report that there’s still plenty of COVID trauma, with guests wanting to steer clear of using cash or interacting with hotel staff. Again, the bright spot. It's a great time for the introduction of contactless payments and kiosk check-ins. And oh… attendees have also developed queue-phobia. They hate standing in crowded lines. 

It’s About the Behavioral Science, Stupid
Count on Victoria Matey to file this report from Nudgestock 2022, a wonky gathering of behavioral science nudgers and tweakers. Despite all the tech progress, she notes, events are in desperate need of innovation. But innovation can’t be achieved without trying new and unconventional methods, without testing something no one else has tested, and without going against the common logic. Here’s the point — common logic will lead you to the same ideas and results that everyone else has, so you won’t progress much. Behavioral science shows us that people think mostly irrationally and exploring this path will help us find unexpected ways to achieve our goals. It takes two things: a willingness to learn more about human behavior and a willingness to experiment.

The Metaverse is Like Porn 
You know what it is but it may defy definition. UTA and VOX Media teamed up to show that 68% of all consumers, and 88% of consumers between the ages of 13 and 25, already engage with metaverse platforms, even though 48% of respondents said they weren’t familiar with the term “metaverse” at all. The definition of porn has often been “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it”. The definition of the metaverse may be “I can’t define it but here I am.”

And the Verdict is Mixed
The Pew Research Center does a deep dive into what's possible in the metaverse by 2040 and the jury comes in quite mixed. The technology will be there to provide a deep metaverse experience but about half the respondents are dubious about its usefulness in real life outside of entertainment.