When the world moves into crisis mode facing conflicts be they wars, revolutions, coups or invasions, facing environmental concerns like climate change and over-population, facing wide-scale problems impacting health, like pollution, or a pandemic, then things can change very rapidly – even those immutable, entrenched parts of our lives where the usual official response has always been: “There’s no way that could ever happen!’. With the Covid-19 timeline playing out on a schedule of months or years, rather than the weeks Governments around the world would prefer, it seems increasingly likely that more and more conferences, exhibitions and tradeshows will be forced to move ‘on-line’ in order to survive. 

Some interactions are easy to translate to a virtual alternative. Face-to-Face meetings have been replaced by videoconferences at a rate that the pioneers of conferencing have always hoped for, but which they never achieved, until recently. People who would never have collaborated on-line are now seeing themselves singing with Gareth Malone, telling stories, playing musical instruments, doing quizzes, shopping, and many other interactive activities online instead of in ‘The Real World’. Actually, that ‘Real World’ has changed forever, because it has been occupied by people who, just a few months ago, may not have known an alternative even existed. Webinars have mushroomed because they are like seminars, only better in just about every way: no room to find, you can’t be late because it is recorded and available on ‘catch-up’, no uncomfortable seats, and no travel. 

Conferences might seem to be just a bigger version of a meeting – except they aren’t. If you try and run a conference with the wrong video conferencing platform, you may find that there isn’t any easy way to have breakout rooms (or to move people into them easily), that there is no green room for speakers (don’t forget that ‘meet and greet’ person to keep them calm pre-talk), no simple way to move a speaker from being ‘ready to go’ in the green room to being live in front of all the hundreds or thousands or attendees in the main videoconference, or moderated chat in the main room and the breakout rooms and pop-up ‘topic’ rooms. Are there virtual exhibition stands in the virtual lobby? Can you stream sessions to YouTube? Can you run ‘Capture the Flag’ and other competitions online? Having presented at an online ‘virtual’ conference with Zoom as the platform, then all of this is possible – but making sure that the platform can provide the right facilities is incredibly important.  

Some activities are more difficult to move to a virtual version. TV has gradually turned soccer, football, formula one, <insert your own favourite sport here>, and even snooker from a spectator sport into a bigger audience of people who casually watch from their sofas... And then we have exhibitions, often the key event of the year for many companies and for potential customers.  

What is needed for an exhibition is a virtual experience that is a bit like on-line shopping crossed with video-conferencing, so that you can browse through the virtual stands, taking a look without being spotted by an over-zealous salesperson, then chat with someone from that company when you want to, maybe then escalate that to video-conferencing if you are really interested, and not to try and get that trashy freebie to give to the kids. So there’s quite a lot of integration of existing tech into a tailored app experience, but it can be very powerful if done right.  

Contenders in this space include: 6Connex.com, vfairs.com and hexafair.com – all hoping to be the company that  provides exactly the right type of integrated experience at the right time – Zoom.us style... As a potential customer, you need to know what you want (you could make a tick-list from the previous paragraph) and you need to be cautious about the impressive list of claims (‘#1!’) and the brands whose logos appear on the web-site, They could just be testing things out - just like you will once you have a short list of three possible providers refined from a Google search for ‘top 10 virtual trade show platforms’... 

If I were the owner of a large exhibition space in the real world, then I’d realise my customers, both exhibitors and visitors, are currently being trained that it isn’t really necessary to physically go somewhere in order to talk to people, see/promote/buy/sell things, and have a productive interaction. One of the things that scares incumbent face-to-face event organisers is losing ‘barriers to entry’. At a time of crisis, the usual reluctance to change gets over-ridden, and people find that alternatives may not be so bad after all, or may actually be... better.  

Two experiences: 

Packing a suitcase, getting to the airport on time despite travel disruption, fighting through the tourists, sitting next to a crying child on the plane, waiting for baggage , getting local currency at ultra-poor exchange rates, queuing to get a taxi, staying overnight in a cheap and nasty hotel that is the best you could find that would fit within corporate guide pricing, getting up early for breakfast to avoid the rush, trying to navigate the metro/subway to get to the venue, queuing to get inside, squeezing your way through the crowds to try and find the stands you are interested in, and then getting ripped off for bland food and drinks at inflated prices...  

Clicking on a link on your laptop and casually clicking around a virtual exhibition whilst still at home in your pyjamas, then leaving with another click and you are back at home instantly to solve that urgent domestic crisis.  

It’s a bit of a no-brainer, isn’t it? ‘Barriers to entry’ are called that because once you have gone past them that first time, you will probably discover that the grass is much greener on the other side, and you will never go back.  

So, how many exhibitions and conferences will survive as physical, face-to-face events when we emerge into the ‘new normal’? 

 

Links 

https://zoom.us/zoomrooms   Zoom ‘Rooms’ Conferencing isn’t just a meeting online... 

https://www.6connex.com/virtual-trade-show-software/  Virtual trade-shows and exhibitions 

https://www.inxpo.com/virtual-events/    Virtual ‘Events’ 

https://www.hexafair.com/virtual-trade-show/  Virtual trade-shows, expos... 

https://hopin.to   Testing the water? 

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.formula-1-launches-virtual-grand-prix-series-to-replace-postponed-races.1znLAbPzBbCQPj1IDMeiOi.html   Virtual Formula 1 

https://decca.com/greatbritishhomechorus/  Gareth Malone’s Online Choir 

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/music-by-300-strangers/  Music by 300 Strangers (On-line)