We have all seen the news: The coronavirus fallout is having a drastic impact on the event industry globally and numerous events like Mobile World Congress, Facebook F8, Google Cloud Next and Adobe Summit in the US are pulling the plug, with many others postponed until further notice. In fact,
49% of event planners have said the virus has already had an impact on their events – according to a poll from Eventsforce.
49% of event planners have said the virus has already had an impact on their events – according to a poll from Eventsforce.
With event profs feeling the pinch caused by the outbreak, some have shifted to virtual events in an attempt to curb cancellation. But is this a viable solution? Adam Parry— co-founder and editor of the event industry’s global online magazine, Event Industry News— says yes.
“Some organizers have chosen to host their events virtually which I personally feel is the right choice!”
“Some organizers have chosen to host their events virtually which I personally feel is the right choice!”
Take the tech conference Collision as an example. They quickly— and successfully— rebranded to Collision from Home in order to redefine the global tech industry with their powerful mission statement and Collision from Home app.
To help support all the event professionals looking to make the shift and in order to keep our industry alive and thriving, we crowdsourced a list of online platforms you should definitely look at if you are looking to pull through these turbulent times with an extraordinary virtual experience.
Hubb
A versatile virtual event platform
Hubb provides the best overall attendee experience on the market. Offer your attendees a personalized experience, along with a robust backend that saves event managers time in getting their event to market, while providing the analytics they need to make more informed decisions and improve ROI.
Glisser
For Audience Engagement & Analytics
A big part of a business’ budget goes into events and conferences and it is important to know how these initiatives are working to improve your overall marketing objectives. Determine the relative success of your live event with Glisser’s Event Data, Analytics, & ROI solutions. Tracking audience engagements in order to draw insight on attendee satisfaction, the effectiveness of sessions, and impact of the event, Glisser creates beautiful analytics reports and infographics to help you make more informed actions and ever-improve your experiential value.
Teooh Inc.
Creating an Augmented Reality (Avatars and All!)
Teooh is a perfect combination of webinars and live conferences and is THE expert at providing authentic social experiences. With their customizable avatars and one-of-a-kind virtual environments — including a virtual, cozy fireside chat — their platform makes attendees feel as if it was a real, live event.
Meetyoo
For a Virtual Venue Like No Other
Meetyoo uses innovative technologies to create a stunning, user-friendly virtual environment; with a real event feel. Their self-contained conference is similar to a physical exhibition center; fully flexible and scalable in order to fit the goals of your conference. Further, you can adjust all design components of the virtual venue in consideration of your marketing strategy, or simply use the pre-designed templates provided by Meetyoo. Laid out with a virtual main hall and lounge, keynote theatre, and exhibition hall and booths, converting from a live event to a virtual one will be as easy as pie.
Zoom Video Communications
For Video Communication and Meeting Solutions
Broaden your reach with Zoom’s reliable and scalable webinar solutions. Zoom Video Webinars allows planners to simplify the process with streamlined registration, user-friendly controls, and detailed analytics and interactive tools such as Q&A and polling in order to keep audiences engaged with your content.
vConferenceOnline
For a Seamless Viewing Experience
With VConferenceOnline, your attendees won’t have to worry about switching between session rooms or hunting around for the next session: VConferenceOnline’s content plays out on a seamless schedule. PLUS, they help you maximize on the pauses between sessions to include promotional messages and commercials with the best of online video play-out technology.
Virtual Conference
For Top-Notch Virtual Engagement
Virtual Conference makes it a point to facilitate audience engagement — a key component to organizing a successful virtual event — with interactive capabilities such as allowing attendees to schedule 1-on-1s with speakers.
SpotMe
For a Flexible, Fully Integrated Platform
SpotMe is the full virtual package. With gamification extras, prize stores, and a home-feed similar to LinkedIn’s UX, SpotMe designs virtual networking opportunities for events with up to 10,000 participants.
Brella
For Matching Attendees Together Based on Common Interests
Brella is great for hosting your event online and can host your live streams, agenda, attendee lists and much more. Better yet, it uses artificial intelligence to match attendees together based on interests and goals; bringing together online communities and sure to extend the conversation well beyond your event in order to catalyze your industry and business forward.
Hoping to help save us all some time and provide some guidance in navigating this fast track lane to virtual events, here is the full crowdsourced list of top online platforms for your next virtual event. Feel free to contribute, share, add tabs that can also provide some tips/pointers!