It’s impossible to discuss events and trade shows without a parallel conversation about the technological advancements that are driving the events industry forward in 2024.
Product showcasing and customer interaction technology have become inexorably intertwined. Just as Covid impacted the event industry and left lasting changes, new technologies continue to disrupt how people experience events.
If you’re planning an event, choosing between a hybrid, virtual, or in-person format depends on your marketing goals, budget, and audience expectations, so we’re going to dive in, try to unravel it for you, and discuss the pros and cons. We have also included tech options available so you can make an informed decision and get the most value out of connecting with your audience on a wide scale.
In-person Events
There has been an uptick in attending or exhibiting at large-scale conferences over the past year.
In 2023, the Content Marketing Institute reported that 63% of its enterprise marketers gave in-person events the green light, a 150% increase over the previous year’s survey.
But before you dust off your booth creative and roll out your product showcase, there’s a caveat.
Even now, when we think we’re finally “over” the fear of large gatherings and in-person events, with every new health advisory, such as news of the recent outbreak in Canada of an aggressive and often deadly form of viral strep, we’re knocked back into a state of social anxiety. Given the emphasis post-pandemic trade shows continue to place on creating safe and healthy environments for attendees, I’m not convinced we ever left. Be mindful that people are still health-conscious and risk-averse.
Visible and rigorous hygiene practices, touchless technologies, and health screenings to make participants feel comfortable and secure have become standard practice at business gatherings, so if you’re planning an event, prepare to address wellness concerns. That said, the current trend for business events is a hybrid model that combines in-person and virtual experiences.
Among its advantages, in-person events provide an immersive experience that gives attendees more hands-on learning with opportunities to see, touch, and interact with your products directly. If a more personalized product demo from one of your sales reps is important to your sales process, then your best bet might be a combination of in-person events, video demos, and product tours that demonstrate how your product can solve a prospective customer’s problems.
An additional option that seems to have fallen off everyone’s radar, is to host an “Open House,” where you invite a small group of prospects to visit your business office or facility for a product demo (and potentially a tour of your manufacturing process). This is an effective way to engage potential customers and give them a personalized experience in a smaller, less intimidating gathering.
For service industries, face-to-face interactions and relationship-building can be of key importance, including making connections and professional networking. For many, the conversations, discussions, and opportunities to meet prospects, peers, and experts at events is where they get real value.
The disadvantages of in-person events include time-consuming planning and significant costs, including venue fees, travel expenditures, technology, speaker fees, design, marketing, and teams of people to run events smoothly. Having been on the event planning side myself, I can tell you that it probably costs much more than you expect it to, particularly so if your event includes music, cocktails, catering and accommodations (if applicable). The logistics can become exceedingly complex.
In June 2023, Bizzabo1 surveyed more than 4,000 event organizers and attendees to better understand the state of in-person gatherings. 97% of respondents expect to see more hybrid events going forward.
Hybrid Events
Hybrid events combine an in-person event with virtual attendees through the use of technology. The goal is to provide an experience that is engages both online and in-person audiences simultaneously. Just about anything can be turned into a hybrid event, such as conferences, networking events, product demonstrations, town halls, meetings, employee onboarding events, etc.
The advantages of the hybrid model include a broader reach and flexibility for attendees who may opt not to attend in-person for many reasons, including health concerns or travel constraints. For busy executives, it’s easier to attend remotely and many events are recorded, allowing them to be accessible at a later date to registered attendees.
Additional advantages include improved return on investment (ROI), easier access to data and insights, gathering more marketing data, enhanced event flexibility, zero restrictions for better planning reliability, lower costs and reduced CO₂ footprint, and the ability to attract and invite more international speakers.
Technology plays a crucial role in hybrid and remote event success. Organizers use a range of software and hardware with features such as live streaming, mobile apps, and live chat to engage attendees.
Apple was an early adopter of the hybrid event format even before Covid, and almost every major event hosted by Apple has been live streamed to a massive global audience.
The disadvantages of online attendees include increased costs, recorded product demos are less impactful, less interaction and engagement, and a higher degree of distraction (attendees multi-tasking during the conference, such as sending emails, doing admin work, and tuning out).
To counteract your audiences ‘switching off’ online, use regular surveys and polls so participants can contribute their opinions (giving them the option to submit anonymously or not), then discuss them in the Q&A so they see that their input matters.
Virtual Events
On a global scale, most companies have had to adapt events to a world where the physical has become digital, so many are still learning how to manage events going forward.
Webinars are the most popular form of virtual event, whether it’s a single webinar or a series of webinars with an element of ‘connection’ and professional networking for attendees pre and post event.
Producing and hosting successful webinars requires significant pre-planning: topic selection, theme, guest speakers, content development, sending out invitations, creating landing pages, recording and uploading the recording to video-sharing platforms and your website, multiple pre webinar promotions, and post webinar follow-up communications for attendees, preferably within 24 hours after the event. It’s important that you follow virtual webinar best practices and do a practice run ahead of the event date.
The upside is that webinars can have significant reach and product-showcasing potential while saving you the costs of hosting an in-person event. The downside includes participant drift or flight, and potential technical issues that could lead to the event being cancelled or attendees being unable to participate and left frustrated.
Podcasts are another virtual method businesses use to connect with potential customers, build relationships, and establish authority in their industry. Podcasts are relatively easy to produce, cost-effective, and can enhance your brand reach and presence. The advantages include allowing you to discuss up-to-date developments and topics that are meaningful to your audience, build brand loyalty, and drive traffic to your website.
Potential pitfalls include the medium’s lack of visual and interactive elements, being audio-only, and it can be challenging for businesses to build an audience and for your audience to find you. In addition, there has to be significant value in it for them to regularly tune in.
According to LinkedIn, podcasts provide an opportunity for companies to share stories, valuable information, and offer insights about their products and services.
It’s worth noting that Google podcasts will be discontinued in 2024, however as of this past January, YouTube is supporting RSS uploads for podcasters, making it the current top choice for podcasts, ahead of Spotify and Apple.
Online Summits/ Conferences are more akin to traditional one-day conferences or summits but held in a virtual environment. An example of this is Digiconf, a full day digital marketing conference designed for B2B digital marketing and comms strategists. Its collaborative and participatory format stems from having four themed sessions, each offering a series of short presentations, Q&A sessions, and discussion panels with full audience participation. Attendees can tune in all day, or pop in and out and the conference. It’s a very effective format if your focus is on thought leadership and gathering industry insights.
Kaltura, a leading North American video platform provider, reports that 94% of event organizers already have virtual events in the pipeline for 2024, and 48% are planning to increase the number of virtual events they’ll host next year.
Virtual Expos/Fairs/Festivals
There are many options in the virtual space to showcase your offering in the market, ranging from large multi-day, multi-venue virtual events such as Festival of Marketing, to virtual events on a much smaller scale. For example, LikeMinds hosted two virtual expos in May of 2020 called ‘Lockdown Business Festivals’ to help small business owners cope with the impact of Covid19 on their business. Each festival ran for a week and enabled attendees to sign up for six Masterclasses each day.
Whereas traditional expos had to cope with all the details involved in venue selection and set-up (I recall once yelling, does anyone remember where the plug is?), virtual expos circumvent all the fussy details and allow you to create a broad range of virtual exhibitor options, including virtual booths, video conferencing for speaker sessions, breakout rooms, downloadable content, sponsorship opportunities, and ways for exhibitors to track ROI through connected, data opportunities. Plus, from a branding perspective, the latest virtual expo tools can be tailored to align with existing branded assets.
Technology
The most popular, easily accessible, and affordable video and live streaming services include Zoom, YouTube, Facebook Live, Vimeo, and Wistia. At the highest end of the scale, companies can use event technology to offer immersive experiences through Augmented reality (AR), Virtual reality (VR), and 360-degree video streaming.
Ai offers a whole range of uses in the events industry, from engaging attendees to ensuring security. It can analyze attendee data, automate tedious budget planning, predict risks, and improve overall efficiency by streamlining event planning and management processes and cutting out wasted time.
According to hirespace.com, Ai can even schedule staffing to optimize security and manage break times. There are technologies cropping up all the time to do this, but ChatGPT is one of the most accessible and affordable AI platforms out there currently.
Here are a few more event tech resources to explore:
SpotMe: Offers a range of features such as mobile event app, in-person event platform, congress companion app, hybrid event platform, professional event services, virtual event platform, omnichannel life sciences event platform, webinar platform, event registration, on-demand content platform, check-in & badging, reporting & analytics … see spotme.com
Stova: Provides a comprehensive suite of event management tools such as MeetingPlay, Aventri, and eventcore, that including registration, event marketing, onsite check-in … see https://stova.io/
1Bizzabo: Offers a range of features such as event website builder, registration, ticketing, email marketing … see http://www.bizzabo.com
EventMobi: Provides a range of features such as event app, registration, live polling, surveys … see http://www.eventmobi.com
Swapcard: Offers a range of features such as event website builder, registration, ticketing, email marketing … see www.swapcard.com
Go chase your dreams, but before you go exploring all these platforms, we would like to say that we hope you found this post helpful as you plan your next event. Please let us know in the comments section below, or just drop a friendly hello!
Fetch Communications 
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