Long Live Virtual Events: 12 Reasons to Host Your Own
2020 saw a shift from in-person events to virtual events for a lot of organizations, largely thanks to COVID-19. Even without the quarantine, many companies are seeing the benefits of staying completely virtual due to a number of reasons, such as cost, convenience, scaling, and so on. There are many reasons why you might want to consider hosting a virtual event, and here are twelve of them.
- Virtual events are global and accessible
One of the biggest barriers to entry for any event is location and accessibility. Event planners for in-person events need to consider countless variables such as timing, resources, hiring extra help, venues, and so on. A virtual event will likely see none of those variables come into play.
For instance, ODSC hosted both our ODSC APAC and ODSC India events on the same platform — EventX.ai — over 2 days in December. We had 1500.thousand attendees from all around the world.
2. They’re flexible and can change on the fly
Customization is a key benefit to virtual events. Aside from being able to build an event from the ground up, including appearance, structure, features, etc. Unlike in-person events, you can change many of these features in real-time. Need to add some speakers to a new section? Easy. Need to change the design of the leaderboard? Only takes minutes.
3. Virtual events are cost-effective
In-person events can get expensive. Between the venue costs, catering, logistics, insurance, etc, it’s not uncommon to see just one day of an event cost a company $100k+. Virtual events are significantly cheaper, often costing less than $10k per day.
4. Data collection made easy
Just like in-person events, businesses can find leads, clients, and new partnerships. However, you won’t need to worry about setting up an iPad to collect emails or worrying about where you put all of those business cards. Online events make it easy to track who attended by gathering emails and creating whole new contact lists. EventX.ai keeps track of your leads for you.
5. Ease of attendance for speakers
Did you ever plan an event but couldn’t get that one speaker you really wanted due to time or travel commitments? That may not be the case anymore.
With the Eventx.ai platform, speakers won’t need to worry about traveling with their likely already-busy schedule. They can chime in via video chat and provide the same amazing content that they would in-person.
6. More people can attend from around the world
Some folks just aren’t interested in going too far for an event and maybe their organizations can’t afford to send them to one. However, a virtual event has a much lower cost of attendance. Attendees won’t have to worry about travel, hotels, or food, and likely won’t have to take as much time off of work either. Using EventX.ai is a convenient way for someone to attend a virtual event.
7. They’re just as engaging as in-person events
A fun part of events is the engagement factor, such as competitions or networking events. While nothing beats sharing a drink with a new friend, virtual hangouts can be exciting too (and they’re BYOB!) Event organizers can also set up leadership boards to track who’s engaging the most, such as who’s seen the most sessions, talked to the most sponsors, and so on. EventX.ai has options for leaderboards and networking sessions to keep your attendees engaged.
8. It’s a good first introduction to your brand
If a potential attendee isn’t super familiar with your brand, then a virtual event can be a good starting point. It’s less risky for someone to check out a virtual event and see everything you have to offer without hopping on a plane and seeing what’s up.
9. They’re replicable and scalable
Let’s say you do one event and it goes well. Now you want to plan the second one but bigger! Since your framework is already in place, you just need to make some tweaks to scale it for more people, sponsors, content, and so on. It’s easy to copy the framework and make it bigger for the next time you host a virtual event.
10. Low barrier to entry for a first event
If you’ve considered hosting an event in the past but didn’t have the resources to do something in-person, then going virtual might be a good starting point. You can go as big or as small as you want to get your feet wet.
11. Content will be available on-demand
If you choose to have speakers at your event, you can easily record their talks, presentations, sessions, etc. This will allow you to easily make the content available on-demand following the event. This is an attractive feature as many event attendees are conflicted to as of what session they want to attend — now they can see both with ease. EventX.ai makes it easy to share content on-demand following the event.
12. The entire sales pipeline can occur quickly
Oftentimes, the sales pipeline takes some time. You exchange cards, email after a week, then finally have a call after a month. It’s a lot of waiting. With virtual events and EventX.ai, you can move the sales funnel along quickly. If an attendee is interested in your product or service, you can keep the conversation going right thereby providing more information, documents, etc.
Host Your Own Virtual Event with EventXai
Whether it’s showcasing a new product, hosting a job fair, or just celebrating in a meetup, there are plenty of benefits to hosting a virtual event. By partnering with ODSC and our EventXai online platform, we can help you host virtual events that your attendees will be talking about for months to come.
Here are just a few of the many benefits of the EventXai virtual event platform:
- It’s scalable: Whether your event is a small monthly meetup with only a few dozen people, or you’re looking to host a massive gathering with thousands of attendees and presenters, this virtual event platform can make it happen.
- It’s immersive and engaging: A joy of in-person events is the engagement and fun shared between attendees. With EventXai, you can still engage in a number of ways. Between chat rooms, leadership boards, meet-and-greets, and more, you can simulate the in-person experience quite well.
- It’s cost-effective: Cost is likely any event organizer’s biggest headache. With EventXai, you can rest easy knowing that you get a lot for the best value in the industry.
- It’s customizable: No two events are the same. A college open house will be much different than a tech product announcement. We will work with you to make sure that each client’s event is unique to their needs, their industry, and their goals.
- You get an experienced staff: Events are tricky, whether virtual or in-person. Our team will make sure that your event goes off without a hitch.
- It’s ideal for any event: There’s no limit to what type of event you can host with EventXai. Some ideas include corporate events, trade shows, career fairs, university open houses, and so on.
Ready to see what the future of events holds in store for your organization? Request a demo now and get started!
