Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

The Next Logical Phase of Event Hybridization and Why It Will Be a Game Changer

hybrid eventsThe merging of live events with digital content and remote attendees was bound to happen. When the Internet poked her head through the ceiling of the convention center, the industry expected something interesting to follow. The divide between face-to-face and virtual experiences has already been narrowed by hybrid events, but the convergence won’t stop there.

There is another side to opening up the Pandora’s box of digital and pouring the contents out onto the trade show and conference room floors.

 

Phase-one hybrids
Hybrid event producers and platform providers have done a fabulous job of providing remote attendees with access to the live event environment. Live presentations are streamed out, while virtual “visitors” chat, tweet and Skype their thoughts and images back into the physical event. Everyone is happy; the “outsiders” are rewarded with great content and some engagement and the “insiders” reap the benefits of increased visibility and net-new live attendees.

But, what happens when live attendees are given access to the digital environment, all of it, even exhibitors, presenters, and content that isn’t physically there?

When we can harness the universe
Imagine a time in the future when a face-to-face event attendee will be able to visit a physical trade show, come upon an interesting booth, engage the exhibitor in conversation and collect product information, BUT instead of moving on, he will linger in the aisle to learn about all of the other companies that offer similar products and services—even the ones that aren’t at the show.

Also in the future, a live conference attendee will be able to sit in a presentation, hear something compelling, life-changing, even transformative and afterward learn about other presentations, companies, ideas, books, white papers, movies and Ted Talks related to the session topic—even those not featured at the conference.

This blending of live and digital is a game changer. Where before, the remote attendees extracted value from the live environment (and craved to experience it), in this new scenario—the next logical phase of event hybridization—live attendees will be able to obtain value from the virtual environment (and they will crave the live experience even more). Going forward, the blending of the real and digital worlds will come full circle.

Mobile will bring it all together
We have all of the tools now to make the convergence happen. Using mobile devices and specially designed applications, live event attendees can scan barcodes, QR codes and augmented reality symbols or tap NFC-enabled phones on posters, columns and signs to access new content, be “transported” into another realm or simply direct the information they desire to a central database for later review.

I haven’t even mentioned Google Goggles.

Before the riot starts
What live event organizer in their right minds would agree to flinging open the digital doors and exposing their existing customers to the competition of companies that aren’t even there? What exhibitor or sponsor would pay to exhibit in or sponsor a live event that supports their competitors? ALL OF THEM. Here’s why:

  • Some time soon, fewer attendees will use live events to initiate buying decisions or learn new information because the events won’t be representative of all of the products, topics and solutions that exist. They will only come if and when they are ready to buy, choosing instead to collect digital information to narrow down the field.
  • Blended (phase-two hybrid) events will be more compelling than stand-alone events. Live attendees will have (and want) the best of both worlds to experience and reach their goals.
  • Exhibitors and sponsors that participate in the live event are automatically privileged over companies that only participate digitally.
  • Organizers are paying much more attention to the attendee experience. What could be more fulfilling for conference-goers than to be able to compare, contrast and continue the learning from a single location?
  • Additional content (from digital participants) represents potential revenue streams for the organizers and introduces a type of tiered participation scheme.
  • Nothing replaces the face-to-face event (so it’s been said a million times) and if the convergence is inevitable, live events will be the only environment where live and digital can exist together.
  • A certain percentage of the companies that participate digitally at first may one day exhibit in and sponsor the live event. It is a brilliant onboarding strategy.

The takeaway:
As the next phase of hybridization emerges, event organizers will have to rethink the value proposition of stand-alone events. They will have to become curators as well as planners and use technology to make sense of the digital landscape as an extension the physical floor plan. More than anything, they will have to understand that hybridization will eventually become a two-way street—remote attendees looking in and live attendees looking out—and it will change the live event game for good.

Monetizing Digital Events

Apparently it’s fairly easy to monetize a virtual event if you have the customer base, an understanding about what works and what doesn’t for your audience and a platform with ample monetization opportunities. A recent Thought Leaders Live Webcast from INXPO shed some light on the myriad ways to earn revenue from digital platforms. Attendees also received a copy of the company’s white paper (registration required, but it’s worth it) detailing the assets (banners ads, messaging, Webinars, directories, lounges, etc.) and bundling strategies that event hosts can deploy.

Ali Libb, online event manager, American Marketing Association and a Webcast presenter, explained that she takes her cues from live event sponsorship opportunities.  A veteran of 11 virtual events since February 2010, Libb outlined her success using tiered sponsorships—each level having a different mix of offerings from speaking opportunities to logos in email and branded landing pages. She offered three specific takeaways in her presentation:

  • Matching presentation topics with sponsors who would like to be associated with those specific subjects, while taking care not to allow overt selling, is a successful approach for attracting sponsors.
  • Content—Webinar presentations, videos, white papers—is easier to monetize than sales opportunities such as virtual trade show booths.
  • Making the content (and the sponsorship opportunities) available for at least 90 days after the virtual event is a good selling point for prospective sponsors and a benefit that physical events can’t offer.

Danielle Belmont, senior online events manager, BNP Media was the second presenter on the INXPO Webcast. Having produced 15 virtual events, she offered a long list of revenue earning tactics from her experience:

  • Virtual booths
  • Event sponsorship packages including a virtual booth, marketing collateral distribution, booth survey, promotional piece in attendee briefcase, attendee list and a podcast
  • Resource center sponsorship
  • Networking lounge sponsorship
  • Exhibit hall video sponsorship
  • Prize sponsorship

Matt Goodwin, senior account executive, INXPO, offered additional monetization schemes including entrance actions (slides on a screen or video playing as attendees take their virtual seats), interactive web space, sponsored polling in slides, product placements in the virtual environment and exit actions (directing attendees to a web site or booth at the conclusion of the presentation). Goodwin also left open the possibility of using game mechanics and mobile extensions as monetization platforms.

As with live events, the revenue potential is only limited by the sponsorship “real estate” and the event organizer’s imagination.  As virtual and physical events continue to merge into hybrid experiences, the potential for monetization becomes even greater with online and offline strategies combining virtual and physical event properties.

Have you implemented any monetization tactics at your virtual events that were particularly lucrative?

 

Why PCMA’s Investment in the Virtual Edge Institute Means More than Just Cash

In case you missed it last week, a joint press conference featuring Deborah Sexton and Susan Katz of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) and Michael Doyle of Virtual Edge Institute (VEI) revealed that PCMA will be making a monetary investment (the amount was undisclosed) in VEI. The announcement is significant and it’s NOT about the cash.

Obviously, a little more coin in the till will help VEI reach its objectives sooner. It looked as if the two groups were heading towards some kind of relationship from their two-time co-location (Last year in Las Vegas and this January in San Diego) and Deborah Sexton’s unflagging support of virtual and hybrid events. But there’s more to it than a budding “vromance” (virtual + romance).

What PCMA has done is such a refreshing departure for an association. In the past, when associations became enamored with a technology or wanted to appease their members’ curiosity, they would invite providers to offer the solution (free of charge, of course) during the annual conference or trade show. Unfortunately, the revolving door of providers year after year scotched any chance for the users or the providers to achieve widespread adoption.

In other cases, associations have used the technology themselves—a sort of eat your own members’ dog food approach—but when the execution failed or the technology became obsolete, the organization ended up with egg on their face and forever after took the low (tech) road.

What PCMA is doing differs from the other approaches in a number of ways. Instead of hooking up with a particular vendor, they have come out in support of a technology. Smart, because it reduces their risk as an association and brilliant, because it is open source innovation at its best.

Under open source models, the “source code” is made available to the community enabling them to produce new products, applications, and uses from the original product. PCMA, with its investment and endorsement of VEI, is helping to unlock the innovation around virtual and hybrid event technology by, in effect, making the research, discussion and experimentation (the source code of a budding technology) available for the entire event industry.

Regardless of where you stand in the “value of trade associations” debate, one thing member-based organizations have been only marginally successful at is helping members get new business—really helping, not just putting buyers and sellers together in the same room or “allowing” suppliers to sponsor activities in exchange for access to planners. The precedent that PCMA is setting is crazy good.

PCMA’s investment in virtual event research and education through VEI can build the trade show and conference industry, help us to transition to digital—not by abandoning face-to-face (obviously), but by figuring out how to blend the old and the new together—create jobs, and accelerate innovation. I can’t wait to see what they do next.

The takeaway: Well done PCMA.

Options Multiply for HOW-TO Education on Virtual Events

When the current wave of virtual event platforms first emerged, technology developers became the primary educators for the industry. In addition to teaching their clients and prospects about the features and benefits of their own products, they were also responsible for helping customers to market the event, develop content, sell exhibit space, train speakers, and a host of other tasks. While they did so gladly, the explosion of interest in virtual solutions placed a heavy burden on them. Fortunately, the situation has changed. Now, there are multiple opportunities to learn about virtual event platforms and execution.

Virtual Event Institute and Virtual Edge Summit

As a former face-to-face event organizer himself—a career path that quickly changed after 9/11—Michael Doyle instantly saw the potential of virtual event platforms. His Virtual Edge Institute (VEI) was the first organization to advocate and educate the event community on digital solutions. The Institute produces the Virtual Edge Summit, an annual hybrid conference covering the full spectrum of topics on virtual event and learning platforms. A prominent feature of the conference is the streaming of content on a wide variety of platforms allowing virtual attendees to test drive products.

EastVirtual Event Workshop for Associations

The EastVirtual Event Workshop is designed specifically for trade association executives and department managers in event marketing, sales, digital marketing, community, meetings, Web, IT services, learning, and training. The program offers participants a hands-on curriculum covering virtual event business models, platforms, budgets, content, staff, exhibits, sponsorship sales, engagement, program planning, assessment, and ROI. “EastVirtual will give attendees the fundamentals of virtual trade shows and conferences. Participants will leave the workshop knowing the first steps for building a 30-day implementation strategy,” says Warwick Davies, principal of The Event Mechanic! and co-founder of EastVirtual. The one-day workshop will be held in Washington, DC on May 18, 2011.

Digital Events Strategist Certification

VEI recently announced its plans for a Digital Events Strategist certification program for individuals “to effectively plan, produce and measure the results of their digital engagement practices” and for organizations “to develop a management pool strategically equipped to engage audiences using digital technology.” Michael Doyle recognizes the challenge that the industry has in getting managers in sync with the virtual opportunities and technology. “There is a bottleneck in the industry right now. On one side, customers are trying to add virtual elements to their programs, but don’t have the skills or experience internally. On the other side, vendors have customers who want to deploy the solutions but they don’t have the ecosystem to support them. The certification will help to change that,” he says.

The Virtual Buzz Blog

There are excellent blogs on virtual platforms and the event industry. I love Dennis Shiao’s It’s All Virtual and Social 27’s Virtual Events Hub. But the latest entrant to the virtual event blogosphere comes from the ladies—Cece Salomon-Lee and Donna Sanford—two marketing/PR and journalism experts (respectively) with a passion for virtual platforms. Their Virtual Buzz Blog is a collection of expertly written how-to posts and perspectives plus curated content from other bloggers that should keep the virtual learners juiced up in between face-to-face events.

The Takeaway: From broad (Virtual Edge Summit) to focused (EastVirtual) to everything in between, there are ample opportunities for corporate, independent, and association planners, strategists, and project managers to learn the ropes. Fortunately no one has to choose just one.

The Virtual Rescue Plan for Face-to-Face Events

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If I had a dollar for every time I heard or read the phrase “nothing will replace face-to-face meetings,” I would be rich (er). The sad truth is that in some cases they’ve already been replaced. The recession, green movement, costs to exhibit, travel hassles, generation Y’s social networking predilections (pick one) have opened the door to virtual events with good reason—they save money and environmental resources while attracting a new audience of exhibitors and attendees. Rather than run towards the exits with brains on fire fearing the cannibalization or elimination of live events by virtual platforms, it’s time to take stock of the real opportunities that virtual event platforms offer to stimulate live attendance and grow face-to-face events.

The bad news

At the same time virtual events are on the rise, face-to-face trade show producers are experiencing their share of challenges. Many organizers are struggling to get a handle on how to grow their events in the face of increased competition from new media channels, continued economic volatility, and rising costs. Exhibitors remain irritated by labor practices and the ever-increasing costs to exhibit. The recent uptick in attendance numbers at some shows doesn’t change the general lack of industry growth overall.

The good news

When done well, virtual experiences stimulate immersion, flow, and presence—the primary reasons why virtual games like World of Warcraft (WOW) are so addictive. To a lesser extent, virtual trade shows and conferences perform in the same way. Like every great concert, sporting event, or cocktail party next door, watching and listening to the action from a distance only makes you crave being there when the opportunity comes along. Incidently, BLIZZCON, the live conference for WOW gamers, sells out almost immediately after the dates are announced every year.

The plan

To prevent the further shrinkage of live events, producers must develop a strategy that allows each of the two mediums—face-to-face and virtual events—do what they uniquely do best and treats virtual platforms like any other content strategy that adapts to address the various stages of the sales funnel:

Stage I: Webinars. Bring in live subject matter experts to deliver regularly scheduled, FREE, and interactive presentations to an audience that is both familiar with the live event (jazzed from attending the year before) and entirely new. Content delivered virtually at this stage should create brand awareness, pique the interest of newcomers and reinforce the loyalty of your customer base.

Stage II:  The Virtual Preview. Use your live event speakers and keynote presenters to offer a glimpse of what’s in store at the face-to-face event. However, lest you think you can get away with something brief, commercial-like, and only at 50% power, think again.  This is the point at which you MUST go after potential live attendees with both barrels, offering original content for FREE with the understanding that the virtual attendees are in a buying mode.

Stage III:  The Hybrid Event. Stream content live from the physical trade show and conference to the virtual audience. This is an opportunity to appeal to serious potential participants—remote attendees, exhibitors, and even sponsors—who want to learn about the event with the intention of participating the following year. This is your opportunity to showcase your product in a three-dimensional way. The best way to do that is to not treat the virtual audience as voyeurs or second-class citizens. You have to engage them, give them a voice, allow them to participate, and frustrate them (in a good way) so that they regret not having attended the live event.

Stage IV:  The Live Trade Show and Conference. Reward loyalists who have made the shift from virtual attendee to live attendee with an experience that emulates the online environment but cannot be duplicated online—rich human interaction, unlimited opportunities to engage in small groups and intimate settings, information on demand, and plenty of tactile experiences. The content and engagement delivered by the live event must be so compelling and actionable that it pushes live attendees back into the post-event virtual stream to form the live event’s virtual community.

The Takeaway: This virtual rescue plan forces live events to differentiate themselves from virtual platforms by offering a level of engagement that virtual events cannot deliver. The richness of the live experience drives attendance. The online content (unique information delivered by live speakers, not archived presentations) recognizes where virtual attendees are in the buying (attending) cycle and delivers content commensurate with that stage of the sales funnel. It allows potential participants—attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors—to jump into and out of the content stream all year long. Yes, this is a long-term approach. Yes, it requires deviation from conventional growth strategies and a level of investment on the part of the event organizer. But, some would argue, the only way forward for the live event industry is not to look back.

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