Virtual Events: The Pros and Cons

Event organizers around the globe have been hard-hit by the pandemic, including both for-profit organizations and non-profits such as associations, both of which count on event revenue for their very survival. And there have been many different responses, ranging from full cancellations, to postponements, to conversion to virtual events to carry these groups through the pandemic.

Drupa, for example, was originally scheduled for June 2020 and postponed until spring of 2021. At the time, no one really thought this pandemic would last as long as it has. Finally, drupa cancelled the in-person event and is instead holding a “virtual drupa” April 20 - 23. The show is on course for an in-person event May 28 - June 7, 2024. Interpack suffered a similar fate: cancelled for 2021 and rescheduled to occur May 4 - 10, 2023.

Here in North America, major events such as PRINTING United and EFI Connect were re-envisioned as multi-day virtual events (PRINTING United Digital Experience and EFI Engage, respectively). Both plan in-person events—PRINTING United in Orlando with a planned exhibit space of 1.2 million square feet, Oct. 6 - 8, 2021. This may still be optimistic; it remains to be seen. EFI Connect will resume its in-person event in January 2022, at The Wynn in Las Vegas—let’s all hope we have this virus well under control by then!

During its virtual event, PRINTING United delivered more than 7,800 hours of video content, all of which was made available through Jan. 31, 2021. When we spoke to organizers in November, they reported more than 8,200 attendees from 108 countries, with more expected to view the archives at their convenience.

XPlor International shifted to a multi-day virtual event, and, as an association, is grateful to its sponsors for their continued support in helping them weather the pandemic. And the Flexo Labels Advantage Group (FLAG) did so, as well.

TexProcess/TechTextil postponed its in-person event to August 2021, which also may be a bit optimistic. But in the interim, the organization has been offering a series of webinars at the rate of two to three per month in lieu of a single virtual event to both keep themselves top of mind and get important and timely information out to its constituents. Event organizers reported that response to the webinars has been better than anticipated, and more than 65% of attendees chose to view them live, rather than later from the archive. 

PRINTING United/AATCC held its December Digital Textile Printing Conference virtually over two days in December 2020, and plans an in-person event for December 2021. AATCC has also been offering a number of virtual sessions during this period, including presenting research relevant to the pandemic, like development in antimicrobial fabric treatment and data with respect to effectiveness of various types of masks.

One company, whose business it is to provide trade show booths and other exhibit materials, took time during the early days of the pandemic to use its expertise to make its workplace safer, including a “check-in” kiosk that did temperature checks, monitored who was coming and going, and had a hand sanitizer dispenser and PPE available. The company then turned those items into products that companies can use in their facilities as we continue to weather this pandemic storm, creating a new revenue stream that will likely continue into the future, and replacing at least some of the lost revenue due to cancelled in-person events.

These are just a few examples of how the pandemic has affected the events industry. But what do the various constituents think about virtual events? We personally talked to several, and we also included a few questions in our "WhatTheyThink Fall 2020 Business Outlook Survey."

Let’s take a look at the survey results first. The survey was conducted in November and December, and of course, there have been many changes since then, including a new administration aggressively working to control the virus, two approved vaccines and more on the horizon, and a downward trend in some of the metrics that we hope will continue. But with that in mind, here are the responses we received.

First, we wondered how comfortable people would feel attending events currently planned for later in 2021, and post-COVID in general. About one-third of respondents indicated they would attend without hesitation while another third said they would prefer to wait until there is a vaccine—it would be interesting to speak to that group in a month or so to see how they are feeling as the vaccines continue to roll out. Seventeen percent indicated they would prefer not to attend events until the virus is eradicated. Again, this would be a good group to follow up with, since many health professionals indicate we may never totally eradicate it, but have a lot of hope about the ability to bring it under control, and, hopefully, reduce the severity of symptoms that a vaccinated person might experience if they do happen to contract some new strain of the virus. 

Then we wondered how much of our audience actually attended or planned to attend virtual events; almost half attended at least some and another 18% had future plans to attend, leaving 35% with no interest in virtual events.

Finally, for those that attended virtual events, what did they think of them? The vast majority said they were inferior to or no substitute for in-person events.

(These findings are part of the WhatTheyThink Printing Outlook 2021 report which will be available later this week in our eStore.)

The conversations we had with various constituents lined up well with these larger survey results. Events like EFI Engage may be a bit of an exception, both because of the scheduling that enabled international access to certain sessions at a convenient time, as well as some sessions offered in other languages, and also because attendees most likely spent most of their time in a smaller number of sessions that were specific to the products they owned or were considering purchasing. Thus, their sessions were likely spread out conveniently over eight days and did not require continuous participation throughout. Some sessions were available as streaming content to be viewed later, including keynotes, that could be viewed at a convenient time. Since we are in the middle of EFI Engage as I write this, we have not had an opportunity to speak to any of the stakeholders to verify that assumption. But events like this—user groups specifically—enable a broader audience to attend. In the old days, a company might send 10 to 15 people to an event like EFI Connect or Graph Expo. But over time, that was reduced to one or two people in order to keep costs in line. With the virtual event, since there were no travel costs, more team members could attend the educational sessions.

We spoke with several sponsors/exhibitors, who agreed that if they could provide content during a virtual event as well as have a virtual presence, there was value. But if they could not provide content, there was little value. Especially for the consultants we spoke with, but really for everyone, a huge value of an in-person event is the ability to wander the halls and aisles, discover new things, catch up with old friends, and make new ones. In most cases, they were less than happy with the virtual exhibit halls—and likely there is much to learn about how to do those effectively. A couple of event organizers noted that exhibitors complained about lack of interactivity with the audience, but digging deeper, those were the ones that most likely were not doing any promotion ahead of time, as they would have done to have a successful in-person event.

One outstanding example of a successful virtual event was FLAG—although it is a small group with just over 100 member companies, about 60% of its members participated. And feedback from exhibitors was also very positive. The way the virtual booths were structured was convenient and flexible. For example, it was easy for an attendee to schedule a meeting, and if no one was available to “staff” the booth, the chat function went away. This meant that sponsors didn’t have to have someone monitoring the booth all the time or attendees waiting vainly for a response to a chat request. It also alerted both sponsor and visitor that someone was actually in the booth, which many of the others did not. Content could be anything from video to brochures and white papers. And for sponsors, the booths were easy to populate.

APTech had already abandoned its large in-person event—Graph Expo/Print—and was planning smaller regional events, a plan they will continue to follow once it becomes possible again. Meanwhile, the organization will anchor its virtual events around specific topics that are focused and more likely to keep attendees engaged.

One equipment vendor we spoke with was doing a number of internal and external virtual meetings on a daily basis, including webinars, and found those useful, but concluded that virtual exhibitions simply do not work, mostly due to the lack of interaction among people, at least for the events he participated in. 

In addition, we already had a trend toward vendors holding dedicated customer events, mostly in addition to trade shows—EFI Connect, Canon thINK, Ricoh Interact and many more. It will be interesting to see whether these smaller, more focused events—once we are back to in-person mode—will take share from larger trade shows, or whether vendors/exhibitors will still continue to do both at the same rate. I’m sure this is a conversation event organizers are having with their exhibitors.

For those planning in-person events later this year, and even into early 2022, most indicated they expect to see either mask mandates or at least a lot of people wearing masks. At the same time, convention venues have been busy upgrading ventilation, changing signage and taking other steps to make the facilities safer.

Even FLAG, which had very positive feedback from both sponsors and members, admitted that virtual events won’t replace in-person events once travel gets back to normal. A key element of its in-person event—and many others that I have attended—includes a visit to a nearby business, university or other important location where on-the-ground information is available—something difficult to duplicate in a virtual event. 

For now, it seems, we will be limited to virtual events at least through most of the summer if not most of the year. What I have seen, though, is a lot of learning taking place in terms of the best way to conduct these events, and I believe in the future we will see more hybrid events—in-person events but with a virtual component that can include either folks who can’t or don’t want to travel. In-person will always be superior, but there will continue to be significant value in virtual events, as well. And most event organizers agreed that presenting content in three- to four-hour chunks was more effective than full-day virtual events in order to keep people engaged. One example of this that I thought went very well was the PRINTING United/AATCC Digital Textile Conference, which had two to three hours of content in the morning and afternoon with a two-hour lunch break that made it feel much more like you were sitting in the conference room at the event and less guilty if you stepped away for a couple hours.

The bottom line is people want the education these events provide—in-person or virtual—but in the end, they would also like to take advantage of the natural networking that occurs at in-person events. As we get further into 2021 and see the global impact vaccines and other measures have, perhaps we will be able to get back to in-person events. Personally, I think it will be some time before these can be conducted at the scale we are used to, but we’ll see how it goes. At least we have the virtual options to keep us informed and engaged as we weather this unfortunate pandemic.