I’ll admit it – I’m not a futurist. I’m not that good at predicting future trends, so I leave that to friends like Nancy Marmolejo and Mitch Joel. I am one of those early adopters, the ones who listen to the innovators, then launch into action.
But I digress.
I’ve been seeing quite a number of blog posts listing predictions for virtual events in 2010. And since I’d prefer not to embarrass myself listing predictions that would truly make you laugh (eg. virtual events will make an appearance on the iPhone – oops, that’s already happened, huh?), I’ll instead list the predictions from those who seem to walk the futurist talk.
- Folio Magazine came out with 115 predictions for 2010. Only 1 of those interviewed, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, listed virtual events as something to take seriously in 2010.
- Dennis Shiao (whose blog posts I truly enjoy because I wish I wrote them myself) gave his list of predictions for virtual events in 2010.
Any that I missed? What are your predictions for virtual events in 2010? Leave your feedback below.
Hi Leesa, this year we expect a huge growth (over 300 %) in the number of virtual fairs and trade shows in Europe. We believe that our market will experience the same situation that our fellow American competitors faced in 2009, with a great interest from corporate and marketing agents.
We will focus our expansion efforts in the main European markets, that is, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. But we will also be delivering virtual fairs to some other partners in other countries.
We expect to develop and organise more than 50 virtual fairs in 2010, and diversify further on our virtual solutions portfolio, with virtual trade shows related to the Wedding industry, Gourmet fair, Post-graduate fairs…
In the job market we will go on entering new countries and educating the European recruiters in the benefits of virtual career events, with interesting projects in UK, Germany, France, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, etc.
On the R&D area, we expect new versions from all the main vendors with
after the feedback received from users and customers in 2009. With new registration processes, social media integration, Skype integration and a new videochat – webinar stable applications, among other new features.
We hope that the crisis is finally fading away, and that we can help the virtual event industry to become a really trendy subject in Europe in 2010.
Thanks for pointing out that other post to me, Cece. I was going to refer to it, so thanks for reminding me.
Hi Leesa,
While our blog didn't make a list of predictions, we believe that 2010 will be the year of the hyrbid event. And it was written by our very own Dennis Shiao =). http://inxpo.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/2010-the-….
Thanks and have a great holidy,
Cece
Director of Marketing, InXpo
Thanks for pointing out that other post to me, Cece. I was going to refer to it, so thanks for reminding me.