COMING OF AGE: How virtual events have established themselves in 2010

The past 12 months have seen the rise in prominence of the virtual event. Whether this has been driven by the collapse of corporate travel budgets or an increasing familiarity with the online space, virtual is very much here to stay. Pete Roythorne looks at the Virtual Edge Institute’s recent summary of the year’s surveys and asks a panel of industry experts why and how this is happening.


2010 has been the year that everyone suddenly started to take virtual meetings and events seriously, indeed the mainstream industry is even starting to see them no longer as a threat but instead as a way of extending the reach, the audience and, importantly, the revenues for their events.

Over the past year, there have been a number of studies into the growth of this sector, and the Virtual Edge Institute recently published its own infographic bringing together the main points of all this research, which reveals some intriguing facts:

3 out of 4 brand managers anticipate trade shows to include virtual
1 in 5 marketers have done a hybrid event
1 in 3 corporations produce hybrid events
71% of exhibitors find virtual good for attracting more participants

“While we’ve seen a tremendous uptake in interest and usage of virtual events in 2010, there is still confusion about the value of virtual for businesses. With this infographic, we wanted to provide an at-a-glance visual that quickly and clearly demonstrated that virtual is a viable way for marketers and meeting planners to expand and extend the read of their audiences,” says Michael Doyle, executive editor, Virtual Edge Institute.

“And for those questioning the widespread adoption of virtual, this infographic provides validation that virtual is no longer an experimental tactic, but rather an integral part of a company’s event and marketing strategies. I envision that 2011 will provide even more data regarding the business value that virtual brings to organisations.”

While these figures speak volumes about how the market for virtual events is changing, we decided to run our own poll, and ask some of the world’s leading virtual event providers what they thought was happening in the industry and how they saw it developing in the next 12 months.

Miguel Arias, co-founder and COO, IMASTE
“The $18.6 billion figure that Market Research Media, which is mentioned in Virtual Edge’s infographic, has placed on the virtual events industry for the 2010-2015 period, has started a lot of discussion within the industry. It is unclear if that figure applies for the aggregated turnover of the vendors during the period, or if it also includes the turnover of the whole ecosystem that surrounds each event.

“For example, a vendor can sell a virtual event platform to an event organiser for €30-50,000 euros, but the total cost of organisation of the event, including marketing, logistics, sales and customer helpdesk is normally 3-4 times bigger. On the other hand, the income that the event organiser may receive from sponsorships and virtual booth sales is around 4-5 times bigger. Therefore, what is the real size of the industry?

“Talking only about vendors I would go for more conservative expectations, but supporting a strong growth trend and widespread adoption of virtual events worldwide. We could expect a total size of the vendors market of around $1,000 M$US in 2014, with a size for the European market ranging a 20% of the total market.

“That would be achieved with a growth rate of over 50-60% for the next four years.

“For 2011 I believe we will see hybrid event continue to gain traction. Many of the old fashioned, established convention centres and physical event organisers are already setting up online sites with information about their events, exhibitors data, pre-networking screening and matching of attendees, etc. It’s a natural progression for these sites and applications to evolve into more complex virtual environments, that provide not only information, but, crucially, interaction and a sense of belonging to a particular community, or event.

“Furthermore, there has been a shift in attitude across the industry. It’s no longer just about virtual events saving money but they are now seen as revenue generators. It is true that transforming costly physical meetings into virtual evenst may save up to a 70-80%, but we believe that there is a great opportunity to generate more income for event organisers via sponsorships and virtual booth sales.”


Kim Myhre, senior vice president and managing director, George P Johnson EMEA
“The merger of physical and virtual event marketing accelerated rapidly in 2009 and 2010, thanks to a ‘perfect storm’ of factors.

“For one, the global economic slowdown eviscerated corporate travel budgets. One result was that b2b marketers quickly ramped up their efforts to web-enable their trade shows, sales meetings and conferences accessible, so clients and internal audiences who couldn’t be there in person could still be a part of the experience.

“Second, consumers and customers are more comfortable than ever with communicating online, and on a wider array of devices than ever before.

“Third, the technology that enables meaningful online interaction is finally fulfilling its promise. Devices are more powerful, bandwidth is greater and the quality of online video has improved dramatically.

“Finally, the continued paradigm shift in the consumer-brand relationship—with consumers’ power continuing to grow—means that it’s becoming even more important for brands to communicate in ways that are timely, relevant and authentic to their consumers. An increasing number of brands are finding that their traditional event marketing can be extended or enhanced when online elements are layered in.

“All of those developments led some to predict that brands would ditch their live marketing initiatives and that virtual only events would ultimately replace face-to-face events. But we believe that a hybrid model will prevail.

“The reality is that people still like to meet face to face — you can’t overlook that. So the opportunity now is to optimize the experience in both environments in ways that enable participants to get the face to face interaction they require while also gaining the extended and ongoing advantages of an online experience.”

Joerg Rathenberg, vice president of marketing, Unisfair
“Rather than coming in with a big bang, the virtual event revolution is taking place quietly, but steadily. This affects every aspect of where people are coming together in business settings: conferences and trade shows; corporate communication; as well as training and education. As more and more companies are adopting the new technologies, it is clear that there will soon be very few events without a virtual component.

“In the past year, a number of large corporations have successfully moved from episodic virtual events to always-on virtual business  environments. This enables them to extend their brand and connect with their prospects, customers and partners anytime and anywhere. It also ensured virtual engagement a permanent seat at the table of the marketing organisation. Following the lead of the Fortune 500 organisations, more and smaller companies will adopt virtual events.
In the next 12 months, vendors will continuously improve the attendee experience, increase interactivity and provide more value for organisers and participants.

“A key benefit of virtual events is that geography is not a factor any longer, which allows companies to increase their reach and grow their attendee numbers regardless of their location. Since the adoption is driven by large corporations with global staff and global audiences, I see the growth as global, rather than local.”

Jens Arndt, managing director operations, Ubivent
“The virtual events industry is maturing. In our opinion, this is the most important insight to be gained from developments in 2010. While in the past the label ‘virtual event’ has been pinned to almost any type of modern online communication, more and more event specialists are gaining a clearer understanding of what exactly a virtual event is – and, equally importantly, what it is not. For example, setting up a Twitter wall at an otherwise completely physical event is not a hybrid event.

“In this context the headline for the next 12 months has to be ‘hybrid gaining traction’. Especially in a corporate context where it is an increasingly common approach to set up physical events for a core group of participants, but rather than letting those participants spread the word in their local offices, the physical event is extended by a virtual component. Keynote speakers are filmed and will then discuss their opinion in a global chat only hours after the live presentation. Physical market places are replicated in a virtual event. While some of the booth staff answer questions in the physical world, others do so virtual.

“Ideally, participants from remote locations do not consume this information in solitude, instead they join in small teams to discuss the implications of what has just been heard for their location. In our opinion this is the future of hybrid events. This combination of physical and virtual components promises to be ideal for the two main objectives identified: Attracting more participants; and extending the global reach of events.”


Chris Meyer, executive vice president sales & marketing, InXpo
“Virtual events got their start by mirroring the look and feel of a physical trade show or conference. This was a ‘familiarisation tool’ to get users comfortable with this new delivery vehicle. Now, however, savvy event planners are tapping into the full power of the web to create experiences that are catered to the unique needs of each event. We now talk about ‘spaces’ more than we do ‘booths’ or ‘show floors’.

“In the next 12 months I believe we will see platforms making it easier than ever to create and build events. The virtual event platform vendors will do less and less ‘building’, handing the keys over to clients and partners. The result is that the industry will return to focus on the content behind an event, rather than the logistics of building it.

“2010 saw good growth numbers in hybrid events. In 2011, we’ll see the hockey stick. Our recent partnership with Freeman is a sign of things to come. Soon, every physical event will have a virtual component.

“There’s still a vast, untapped market for virtual events. To penetrate new markets and industries, education and ‘ROI proof points’ are needed. We’ll see vendors (like us) engage with prospects in virtual boot camps and ROI workshops, as a means of demonstrating the power of virtual.”