Fall 2020


INSIGHTS EVENT MARKETING »


PIVOTING YOUR In-Person Events to Online Experiences


By Kate L. Harrison


NEWS | REVIEWS | IDEAS | OPINION |


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ince March, nearly all events, from trade shows and conferences to


corporate meetings, have had to pivot from in person to online. According to Forbes, as a result of this shift, some virtual meeting platforms have seen as much as 1,000 percent growth. That’s not necessarily bad news


for either event hosts or attendees. International Data Corporation (IDC) recently surveyed virtual event planners and attendees through the first half of 2020, asking what was working well and what was not working well in the virtual event space. Although the move to virtual resulted in a drop-off in attendance for many events, 46 percent actually gained attendees due to the elimination of travel costs. Perhaps most importantly, meeting


planners tended to see virtual events as a success, not only in terms of attendance, but also measured by number


of downloads, revenue, and audience engagement. Nearly half of organizers surveyed found virtual events to be less expensive to produce than in-person events. This was the experience of Alicia R. Gilbert, President and CEO of Jack Friday, an association management company that puts on dozens of conferences and events each year. The first event Gilbert hosted after the shutdown was the biannual conference for the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA), a 650+ attendee, multi-day conference that was supposed to take place in Atlanta, Georgia, in April. “With the hotel contract canceled


on March 20, we had 30 days to move everything online,” Gilbert recalls. She spent three days reviewing platform options and ultimately decided on Brazen, a leading career fair and virtual event platform. Gilbert found it to be very affordable, and it allowed for both live sessions as well as pre-recorded and


on-demand sessions that could be made available to fill in the gaps in the multi-day program. Most importantly, the platform had a good structure for virtual exhibits of sponsors that allowed for a booth-style experience, including live chat. Gilbert was able to retain about 60


percent of the audience (about 400 people) and most of the event sponsors. Even after refunding one-third of the ticket price to attendees and offering a 15 percent reimbursement to sponsors, the conference net was almost 10 times what they would have made from the in-person version. “We had no big costs beyond the platform,” she explains. Gilbert has since produced 20 other successful virtual events in a time frame of approximately seven months and, along with other experts we spoke with, offers the following takeaways, advice, and best practices.


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