More 2 Marketing

Susan
More to marketing. Welcome to modern marketing, a podcast on marketing, product and everything in between. I’m your host Susan Walsh, and today we’re going to be talking about emerging trends for the event industry. Now, no big surprise with COVID ravaging through, events have changed and they’ve really sprung. Back in the last year, but there definitely was a lot of changes that had to take place to make events be able to come to life again. 1 trillion worldwide events industries is expected to return to normal as early as 2023, so that’s a huge number. The worldwide event industry $1 trillion. But there’s going to be some big shifts and it’s expected that this is going to be happening for a while. Hybrid events are really starting to grow. This is where you’ve got a virtual event, but you can also have it as a live event, so you get the best of both worlds. For me personally, I think this is a great opportunity, particularly if you’ve got commitments or you’re unwell or you’re just unable to get to that location. For whatever reason, it could be trains are down, planes are down, too expensive to fly. You can’t get there. There’s only one location that they’re going in the world it. Could be anything. But it makes a huge impact and in 2020 virtual events just boomed. 52,000 happened on just one platform alone. That was 100 times more than the previous year. And The thing is, this makes events organisers can look to the future that allows for more. In person events, but also virtual. This new hybrid model makes sense. It’s another way that the industry can actually revive sooner. That gave more audience share 71% of event planners say they’ll continue to employ a digital strategy even after all events return back to normal. And that’s from the event in BJ’s 2021. Research from that same research, 67% stated that hybrid. Was the way of future events. And I have to agree with them, 97% of respondents to a survey by VIZAGO, which is an event management solution. Said that, they want to see more hybrid events going forward, 97% platforms like Canopy allow this hybrid events platform to happen and those other platforms have actually exploded because of COVID because you’re able to create and plan that hybrid event easier. It’s also quite secure in how they get their funds. Also, just to give an example of the both of these virtual platforms, one startup alone got $2 billion as part of its first one of its rounds of funding. That’s huge, 2 billion. So definitely everyone was seeing this future and how it could actually go beyond COVID by investing that. But these hybrid events don’t just have to be for these big centre stage extravaganzas with musicians or bands, they’re actually great for if you’re doing conferences, you can share and have everyone involved from all over the different States and countries. Like a lot of the now widely used teams and zoom calls etcetera, hybrid is going to become the new norm. Definitely for events in the future. And I wouldn’t be surprised in the next. One or two. Years you’re going to see it almost everywhere with different types of pricing for in person versus virtual. Another trend that’s starting to emerge is actually immense becoming important PR tools. So an example here is where you’re going to move more from the corporate events being the revenue source to actually a marketing vehicle, because going to have no limit to the number of virtual attendees that you can get online. Now some of those big companies, for example Microsoft in 2020, had a conference and they actually charged people previously to attend, and they only got 6000 people. But then the. Following year, when things became more virtual. They made it free. And they had 197,000 people turn up. So it shows that. If you’re gonna use your your brand to have a corporate talk, conference seminar, whatever it might be charging isn’t always the right way to go. If you want to get your voice out there. And if you use it as a PR opportunity for marketing cost, you’re going to get a lot more bite. Particularly when you are one of those bigger Princess getting prison. From this, there’s been a big trend where in the US that they’ve seen 80% of these organisations now offering free registrations for their big events are no longer charging, which is an interesting shift, but it’s also part of their marketing strategy and brand strategy, however. If anything, there is a downside, so offering tickets for free does mean it’s gonna be a hit to profitability. If that’s what one of the aims were for the events. As of March 2000 and 2090% of event professionals saw some or most of their business gone. And then only 25% of event planners were able to actually hold a profitable virtual event. So this is something to definitely consider about what your strategy is in the long term. When you’re doing events and what you’re actually. Going to get out of it. Sponsorship could be an answer, but you need to really consider. One of the big benefits though, of these virtual meetings, conferences and sessions is that if you were a business that had one big event for the. Year. You’re not stuck with that one event anymore. You can do more smaller virtual events throughout the year and have them more tailored to your different types of audiences. That would be interested. It’s a great way to get your message out and be part of something bigger when it comes to your overall strategy. Another trend in the event industry is professionals actually using events to help them upskill. This has actually been something that’s happened quite a lot because of the change in structure, technology and professional skills needed in the emerging field of virtual events. This has increased 215% in the last five years, so people searching for upskilling in this particular area. When surveyed, 71% of event planning professionals said they wanted to learn to develop their skills in designing live experiences. In a post COVID world, because that was going to be the future because there’s still a gap here, there’s a whole pile of new certifications coming out that you can look into. And the need for professionals to adapt their skills is going to continue beyond 2023 due to this change, there’s now going to be an emphasis on transformational experiences in the future for events, because let’s face it, the industry has been majorly disrupted and society. As a whole is one of some changes. The pandemic has introduced new concepts that no one ever thought would be possible anytime soon. 68% of marketers believe it is harder to provide networking opportunities in a virtual world. And also that value proposition for events so. There really needs to be more emphasis here on how can you make better. In February 2. 1021 there was a survey of event planners, with 66% saying they needed to learn design digital event experience to prepare. So going back to the point before of the emerging trends, more training has been needed. But even before the pandemic came through. Events were already shifting. There were more things happening virtually, but just not in the mass wave that we were ready for. Or I should say we weren’t ready for. The key considerations, though, for all these events, soon as they go down to the bare basics one creating those meaningful connections 2 some form of entertainment, whether it’s educational or actual entertainment is in music or whatnot and three, the content needs to be relevant and on point. They have not changed the desire for the transformational experience needs to still incorporate all of those. Content is still huge. It’s one of those bigger players, but we need to have all three of those. One of the future trends, which is a hangover from COVID, is going to be the emphasis on physical and virtual safety. And when we’re talking physical safety here, we’re actually talking about a lot of corporate events or types of events. Alone are going to want to see COVID vaccination proof. 39% of the of event planners, so that they would have to require this in the future, which is no great surprise for the US. However, that will be different for all different countries and it should be considered as something that you look into depending on your circumstances. Virtually, though, we need to ensure that the virtual events is actually safe and they they present a new risk which is cyber security has probably never been seen before in this. Kind of volume. The FBI recorded a 300% increase in cyber crime in 2020 alone, and this is just going to continue within Australia. We’ve seen our own cyber crime happening, unfortunately. And that’s why the industry experts are now really pushing and mandating in some industries 2 factor authentication, use of VPN passwords for protection with certain amount of characters, etc. And that’s something that needs to make sure you consider when building out any kind of virtual event if you do. Another big trend is data. A lot going to be collected now during and after, so going back to my last point about information security, that’s huge. We need to make sure that that is captured in a big safe way because big data needs to be looked after. But it also gives us the opportunity that we can delve into and learn more. We can find out ahead of time. Some customers their wants and needs. What what the future holds for them, what they want to see and proactively give it forward for them in real time. And that’s where some of these virtual events can help, where you can do events more often to hit these target markets that are interested in these. So why not if you can? An interesting find that I I heard of recently is one of the major driving forces behind data collection is a struggle for online engagement. I myself am not engaging as much in content in the recent years, so I’m not surprised to hear that that’s across the across the world. I can also see that there’d be something like. Zoom fatigue or tigs fatigue from all those hours just being from a screen, looking at people and not actually getting up. So that’s definitely something that. All companies need to be considerate of. People need to be getting up and moving about because their health and well being also needs to be considered. Maybe put in some time if you’re going to invent where people. Have. Those breaks to shake it off and do what they need to do and come back fresh. Because you want them to be engaged, be part of it. Current research actually indicates that only 42% of all people attending a virtual seminar are actually there for the. So 42%, that’s a big drop off of 58% during that time. So this would be because of the assumption here is the fatigue, but also the content being presented so. That’s something that. Should be considered and part of your benchmarking and KPIs is. You want everyone to stay to the end, don’t you? So what’s that target going to look like and how are you going to achieve?
Speaker
Yeah.
Speaker 1
With the continued investment in virtual entertainment virtual meetings, all those type of topics and companies, there’s no wonder that a lot of people are going to be bringing out hybrid events and that could be from a concert or through to a. A big event that’s hosted by a big company. I’m just gonna make one up and say Samsung for example. So people need to be aware of this and know how to interact and how to build them out. But the biggest conclusion is COVID made a huge difference depending on individual taste. It could be for the good or the bad, but either way technology has jumped ahead approximately about 10 years. So we need to ensure that we are ready for it right now because it is here now whether the event is online, offline or a hybrid. We need to always be flexible, prioritise safety and emphasise what the people want to hear so that they’re engaged and part of it for the whole 100% of the time, no matter where it is. Hope you’ve enjoyed this topic on event industry trends. Look forward to seeing you on the next more to marketing podcast and don’t forget to follow it. More to marketing.