The value of face-to-face interaction will no doubt remain inevitable throughout life! However, there are times when going out becomes physically impossible. No matter how vital the event is for you, attending the same would cost your life. The most current scenario depicts the vitality of virtual meetings. The spread of COVID-19 has strongly proved that virtual events are the future of your meetings and conferences. Most businesses during the isolation achieved conferences filled with networking chances, educational sessions, and insights.
Virtual events are no less than actual events in person. You require the same attention and critical thinking to host a virtual event. Besides the venues and on-site participants, not a single element is missing in virtual events. Many platforms have been dominating market players in the Virtual event industry.
These platforms supported all broad types of events to make virtual events the new boon for the world. Many Video API platforms even enhanced their stock value to tenfold higher as compared to the pre-pandemic period. Here check out some statistics and figures that show the bright future of virtual events in the upcoming years.
Covid-19 Impact on Virtual Events
No doubt, Covid-19 has widely enhanced the popularity of Virtual events. Isolation has forced many businesses to operate virtually. Remote working forced many companies to run virtual events over Video API platforms. The most common virtual events witnessed during the times were team meetings, panel briefings and discussions, webinars, and live streaming sessions with guest speakers.
Interestingly, you can witness about a 14% rise in webinars during the pandemic. The Ask-me-anything sessions also witnessed a 9% enhancement in numbers. This majorly depicts how virtual events got empowered by COVID-19.
Even 90% of the organizations participated in global analysis and voted to continue the virtual events even after the pandemic. The driving factors that make the virtual events a success during a pandemic are:
- Instant connectivity.
- Cost reduction in event organization.
- Attending events is our own comfort.
Technological Advancements and Advantages of Virtual Events
Long before the pandemic, virtual events still existed. However, no organization found it reasonable to conduct virtual events instead of face-to-face events. Technological advancement at first laid the foundation of virtual events. The scenarios where connecting to clients was not feasible due to distance used virtual events as a channel for communication. Communication tools like instant messaging apps, video calling apps, slack, and online webinars also boosted the popularity of virtual events long before the pandemic.
Eventually, Covid-19 turned out to be a fuel that ignited the importance of virtual events. What took years for technological evolution only took a few months for COVID-19 to spread the popularity of Virtual events!
Despite being the only option for communication during a pandemic, Virtual events also delivered exceptional benefits to the hosts. Most stereotypes stated that virtual events would take away the audience from organizations compared to in-person events. However, it turned out to be wrong. Here are many perks that you get from Virtual events.
Extensive reach to the audience along with inclusivity
In-person events, no doubt, made it lively, but there were still a massive number of participants who could not attend virtual events for many challenges. Some of these challenges were personal, while some logistical. However, virtual events enabled all participants to take part across boundaries. Even many businesses achieved long-distance selling points with the help of virtual events.
Saving cost and time
The virtual events proved to be cost-saving for both ends; including the hosts and the participants. Hosts reduced the cost of hosting events by 75%. Only 25% of the cost got used in setting up the right equipment to make virtual meetings possible. With many organizations already having hardware configurations, they only had to buy a virtual event platform subscription to save even more.
Besides the presenters, participants also saved costs on logistics. Most participants staying at a farther location joined the virtual meeting at a meeting platform subscription only.
Event flexibility and Easy accumulation of powerful data
Flexibility is when you can host meetings at multiple event spaces. In-person events were limited to physical venues only. However, virtual events allow hosts to host an event from any location multiple times. The advanced virtual events platforms also make the event more accessible and interactive by offering language options. This helps you increase the number of participants as well.
The collection of data is a major part of every event. However, in-person events make it difficult to collect insights about several participants, feedback, and many more. Virtual, even, in contrast, offers you easy access to all such vital data. It includes several participants, their feedback, responses, and many more.
Effect on Virtual Events and Isolation
Although virtual events are a great success, they also offer limited interaction between participants and the host. Connectivity issues can sometimes obstruct chats and live interaction sessions. The users may even lose the meeting session temporarily for some time.
Isolation is a key requirement for current scenarios, but it sometimes proves to be less fruitful during virtual events. The participants, in many cases, fail to connect with the emotions of the host. Isolation also makes it boring to attend long meetings in one place.
Virtual Events Trend and Statistics
To determine the trends and statistics of virtual events, you need to know their market size. In 2020, the global virtual events market size was valued at 94.04 billion USD. This will further grow at a rate of 23.7% from 2021 to 2028. The increasing adoption of technologies with live streaming APIs is what boosts the growth. Here is an example of a UK-based event unicorn, Hopin, which scaled up its valuation during Covid. For example, the Top fintech speaker in the UK, Johnny Boufarhat, founder of Hopin, has been a pivotal figure in this transformation.
The fastest-growing UK-based virtual events startup is now unicorn - HOPIN
Hopin is a UK-based virtual events unicorn that has recently scaled its valuation to $7.75 Billion. On the 5th of August 2021, the company raised another $ 450 Million in funding to reach its peak. It is one of the fastest-scaling tech startups that has beat many of Europe’s largest private sector companies. In March 2020, with a valuation of $ 5 billion, the startup first gained the fastest scaling company title and is now way bigger. Johnny Boufarhat is the founder of Hopin, who started the firm back in 2019. COVID-19 turned out to be the biggest turnover for the company and made it an event unicorn. The company has grown to 800 employees in 47 nations worldwide.
A new frontier for Virtual Events Platforms to expand
Hybrid Events
Hybrid virtual events will be the standard choice in the post-pandemic world. This allows organizers unparalleled reach & profit. Further, this could lead to interesting ideas & avenues where both the virtual & non-virtual could interact, play games, and network.
Virtual Studio
The next wave is virtual studios, now these platforms are focusing on extending in the creator economy. Providing first-class studio support for creator platforms like YouTube, Facebook, etc. Zuddi just launched their Studio a month back as a private beta to experiment on the creator market.
Virtual Co-working
Apart from this, in the multiverse, a couple of companies are experimenting with virtual offices to drive the engagement of their existing customers with another solution. Companies like SoWork are facilitating virtual work to encourage diversity in the workplace and counter climate change.
Virtual Events Future Prediction
The future prediction about virtual events states 40.37% growth till the end of 2021. The market impact after the pandemic will remain neutral, as users are well-versed in the benefits of virtual events. Several players are occupying the market. But the North will continue to contribute the highest with a 29% boost. However, professionals predict that the future will bring an amazing amalgamation of in-person and virtual events.
Virtual is at the frontier of opportunities and unexplored spaces, and we didn’t even mention the gaming industry or the metaverse or VR headsets! The possibilities are yet to be explored. Experts strongly believe that virtual is going to change the status quo. However, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make that vision a reality. Startups and event management companies being more strategic about the fact that will revolutionize free-style socializing events
