Virtual Events Aren’t Offline Events Shoved Online

by | Jul 1, 2009 | Virtual Events & Telesummits | 2 comments

One of the mistakes that people make when organizing a virtual event is that they think that you can replicate what you do for offline events online.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

This was pointed out by David Tebbutt in a blog post entitled Virtual events aren’t real events shoved online. He said that it’s a mistake to run an virtual event like an offline one.

For example:

  • Virtual event content must stay up after the event is over (with offline events, the content disappears to make way for next year’s information)
  • Virtual events are available to anyone anywhere in the world (due to travel, offline events may only appeal to those who live in its geographical area)
  • The attention span of those attending virtual events is shorter, so speakers should design their sessions to be shorter (with offline events, you’re more likely to hold attention longer because most people are too polite to leave a room, even if the session is boring)
  • Virtual events allow you to collect much more data on visitors (it’s harder to do with offline events as not every attendee visits every booth at a trade show)

David does state that the networking is by far the #1 benefit of offline events. However, he states that:

“Some things things we’re just going to have to do without if we’re concerned about our budgets, our time and the environment.”


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2 Comments

  1. Christina Hills

    I love how you put this together in such a short concise summary.

    Yes, promoters need to keep this in mind that virtual events are VERY different than live in person events.

    Cheers,
    @christinahills

  2. Robin Klombers

    First comes the disclaimer that I work for InXpo, a Virtual Events provider… but I come from being a client of this technology as well. Virtual events do not replace the physical event (albeit the economic realities aside), however they can offer so much, more easily, for both the attendee and exhibitor than a physical event does, while being more cost effective for both (which includes the factor of time).

    A few exhibitor advantages of going virtual:

    1. The amount of knowledge that is gained about the booth vistors is unmatched. Through robust reporting, an exhibitor knows who visited their booth, how long they stayed, what content was reviewed and even downloaded, what interests that visitor had (which products, services, etc..), any dialog that was exchanged between booth staff and the visitor, etc..

    2. An exhibitor can actually seek the attendees they are looking for via search capabilities, rather than hoping the right person will “walk” by. For example, if I attend a virtual event and I want to know how many colleagues are there, I can type “InXpo” into the search and find everyone – that works for the exhibitor who wants to reach a specific company, or even job title or whatever other infromation is captured through registration and/or additional attendee profile questions.

    3. Intelligence behind the “fish bowl.” At a physical event when there is a prize given away at a booth, sure it drives traffic to the booth but it’s really list generation as the exhibiting company knows little other than what is written on the business card thrown into the fish bowl. With a virtual entry to win a prize, a survey can be part of the entry or even the requirement that the entry be a result of interacting with a booth staffer – now it’s really lead generation.

    There are a bunch of obvious reasons as well, but these 3 are my top favorties, not to mention that this information is all available realtime through web based reporting – makes follow up easy.