Covid-19 and its forcing us enmasse into the world of virtual and hybrid events is throwing up some very tough challenges for an industry, used to running physical events, to confront.
They range from finding new metrics to prove its value to changing its mindset to thinking longer product cycle versus a few-day phenomenon, to the sourcing of venues and how the supply chain has to adapt and the kind of talent needed to support its move into a hybrid era.
As the WiT Virtual panel this week, examining growth sectors for events in fintech, medtech and e-commerce, highlighted, even after the Covid-19 crisis stabilises, virtual is not going to go away and will be baked into the ecosystem – and that means new players will come in to challenge the status quo, unorthodox partnerships will be formed, and different skill sets will be needed.
Think of it as the most radical re-engineering in modern times of an industry that’s as old as time.
Here are some key takeaways from the WiT Virtual, held in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Exhibition & Conventions Bureau, to probe the future of events in a Covid-19 world.
1. New metrics are needed, take lessons from the digital world – “we measure everything”
Ng Chee Soon, managing director of Carousell, the Singapore-based marketplace which sells anything from $5 vintage dresses to $900,000 houses, said the shutdown of physical events is prompting him to question the real value of having its Carouselland shows in which it brings its digital marketplace into a live format, matching buyers with sellers.
He said, “In some sense, when we look at our own numbers alone, we almost feel like we don’t need it anymore. We never missed it. Because our platform numbers have been increasing through the months.”
He added, “We will be even more laser focused in questioning the objectives and how we’re going to measure payback and whether it’s a worthwhile venture to invest not just financially but also in our resources in participating in events like these.”
A lesson he shared from the e-commerce world: “We measure everything. If we don’t have the metrics, we invent them and we track them.”
Adding he’d looked at it in three dimensions, he said, “If we were to run an event, does it help us in driving downloads? Is it bringing new users? Does it drive listings? The second dimension will be brand equity – does it make us better in terms of brand recall? And the third dimension is engagement – there are so many different ways to measure engagement, potential users looking at our content, are they engaging on our platform?”
Pat Patel, principal executive officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore, said, “It’s got to be something to do with your brand, getting your brand visibility in this virtual setting to more customers. Getting that awareness, and if you can measure it using social media techniques, that’s got to be an ROI on that because you can reach more customers in that virtual world … say, 5,000 people viewed your product or 5,000 people saw your brand. Can you associate a price point to that?”
Sukumar Verma, managing director of Informa Connect, Singapore, said, “The elephant in the room is networking. Face to face events give you depth because it’s about relationships. But it’s not scalable. There’s only so much you can achieve in a couple of days. Digital can scale – so it’s really crucial to be able to measure that.
“The key is engagement metrics. How often is the customer connecting with your brand? Who went to your presentation for how long? Who downloaded your white paper? There’s a whole range of gamification tools available – Kahoot, Mentimeter, if leveraged appropriately, it can improve the engagement and therefore allow for fantastic reports back to your sponsors and exhibitors.”
Bottomline is, how do you measure serendipity, that chance encounter during a break, that drink at a cocktail that led to a deal – the touchy-feely aspects of a physical event?
Said Verma, “It’s the inspiration quotient, the anticipation, the thrill. Physical is much more immersive. In our survey, 58% say they prefer physical, all things being equal. The destination extends the experience, there’s the power of the physical event to leave behind a memory. Site visits too are necessary before someone invests millions of dollars into something.”
Said Patel, “Serendipity is hard to create virtually, meeting people you haven’t seen for a while. The magic of content – to hear a brilliant speaker, amazing debate, that inspires and invigorates the soul. And after this, we are going to need this more than ever.”
2. Hybrid is the new world – blending best of both, it’s not easy
Informa Connect, which organises the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) Conference and Exhibition annually in Singapore, has moved its event from August to December and is planning a hybrid format for the event which typically attracts 1,000 participants from 30 countries.
Its unique selling point is it attracts potential collaborators, investors and partners, looking to work with the local market. “We plan to give something new to the industry and to open their eyes to new possibilities with the hybrid event. It needs to be both content-driven as well as a marketplace,” said Verma.
“The whole event design is being looked at, specifically the programming of on-demand content, the technology platform, the community integration, for example, how will we get networking going between the physical and the online participants? At the same time, we’ve got to be prepared as an organiser for a possible second wave and we will be ready to press the button to go fully digital if need be.”
The key, he said, is consumer education. “We have to alter the consumer’s perception of ROI of hybrid/virtual – that it is premium content and they should pay for it.”
Patel, who’s organising the Singapore FinTech Festival, launched in Singapore in 2016, is also going down the hybrid road. “We feel that by looking at the constraints that you get in a virtual world, as well as the physical constraints that we currently have, you can turn those constraints into opportunities.”
Given the event attracts 60,000 delegates and it’d be impossible to get those numbers into Singapore this year, Patel said, “… we’re trying to be creative around the constraints of physical and virtual and flipping those and creating something that’s unique, fresh and site engagement.
“That needs to happen because at the base level, there are three things that our customers want to do, they want to increase their sales cycles, they want to find the right partners to collaborate with, and they want investments. So if you engineer your experience in that virtual and physical world around those three key areas, then we feel that you can’t go wrong.”
Going hybrid also means it has the opportunity to grow those numbers to 100,000, said Patel. “We’re not looking at and charging high prices for this event, it will stay in the same kind of inclusive element that we’ve always had, and we will look to bring in new communities that may, for one reason or another, been unable to travel all the way to Singapore … it just gives us greater reach.”
There however doesn’t seem to be the one platform that rules them all. Verma said he was looking at a combination of Vimeo and Brella while Patel said it was still exploring options. “Unfortunately, the platforms we’ve spoken to are unable to cater to the scale that we need it for. So we’re thinking creatively about how to construct what that should look like. It’s not that we’ll be building anything, but it’s just making sure we’ve got the right tech supplier, and that may not be a traditional provider.”
3. The elephant in the room – how much do you charge, who will crack the code?
Carousell’s Ng said that one reason consumers may not be prepared to pay the same price as they do for a physical event is because “the perception is a hybrid event or virtual event is really a copy of the physical event. And many people fail to see how much you can draw in terms of value in a virtual form”.
He said the fact that people are consuming masses of content online currently – he said he had attended more webinars in the past months than conferences in several years – shows there’s a huge opportunity to be uncovered, “in terms of trying to find a way to deliver value beyond just content. I don’t think that’s clearly articulated and perceived. Whoever can crack that code, I believe, should be able to turn that into a huge value return.”
Patel said the code could be in the measurement of leads generation or recruitment. He said often CEOs attended conferences because they get access to young talent they would normally not meet.
Verma said some groups are more price-conscious than others. “It comes back to knowing the customer to then creating the business model.”
Clearly, the destination also plays a big part in the value of a physical event – a setting that takes people away from their day-to-day, inspires them, relaxes them so that they clinch deals in say, a cocktail party setting, or from a site visit. How do you bring that destination experience into a hybrid or fully virtual event? Well, that’s another code to crack.
4. With hybrid, the whole game changes – communications engagement, longer product cycle
From sourcing of tech platforms to sourcing of physical spaces and services, and rethinking partnerships, the whole events sector is up for some bigtime disruption.
Verma said, “The supply chain needs to start using the nomenclature of hybrid events and move beyond the physical event because this will be the new norm. Across the supply chain, you need to change the thinking about what the product is because, in effect, we are offering a communications engagement solution. This is really important to understand because the product offering is being redefined.”
“Is the supply chain ready?”
He said it goes beyond offering wi-fi to capabilities in cyber security, data protection, AR, VR. “And if you’re offering space, what can you offer in terms of space design that integrates the physical and online? There are a lot of new concepts emerging and the whole sourcing and planning process is going to change and therefore the collaboration and contracting models will change.”
He said it was really important those in the supply chain understand the event world is changing, and “they need to be able to keep pace or they will lose out to hybrid venues who are already kitted out, and they can accommodate about 200-250 people, and they are ready to plug and play.”
Patel said with the banqueting business not coming back in a hurry, hotels might consider options such as more exclusive events, for example, 20-30 decision makers “in a particular field that are discussing and debating the future and have an element of buyer-seller relationship”.
“Keep it very small, exclusive, keep it safe, but really look to curate how the networking would work and how the content would be delivered as well.”
Carousell’s Ng wonders if it’s time for the industry to look at partnership opportunities with the media and entertainment world “since it looks more and more like a TV production” and “you can create these events on scale”.
Could hotel rooms be kitted out as TV studios? Imagine Disney partnering with Venetian? Get ready for more unorthodox partnerships.
5. New talent needed to support the digitisation of events
Verma said Informa was focusing on retraining its existing staff to get them ready for the digital world. “In terms of new skills, we certainly want people who are more tech savvy, who are more comfortable with navigating platforms, who are more comfortable in having technical discussions with venues with vendors, who are confident in onboarding speakers and customers. Not everybody comes with that level of confidence and knowledge. But people can be educated to pick up those skills.”
Patel said talent around content was critical – content “that frames today and frames the future”.
“Gone are the days where you have individuals walking on stage, a salesman selling a product on a stage because nobody pays to hear a sales pitch. Sales pitches are done on your booth or your virtual booth or whatever that looks like,” he said.
It’s about trying to be different with content “because you’ve got three types of content – content that is inspirational, content that can create an emotion and content that is insightful – and if you play between those three areas, you can get a captive audience that stays with you.”
From the audience, there was a comment, “There’s a need for more specialised virtual/hybrid moderators – it’s a real art.”
Patel said, “I always tend to like moderators that know the industry well, as opposed to say, people that have a general knowledge. Journalists have a general knowledge, and they’re skilled at what they do, but don’t have the necessary depth.”
The sweet spot is finding someone who has the experience and production work as well as deep knowledge, as well as personality, “because in a Zoom setting, in a virtual setting, to try and keep people engaged is a very difficult”.
6. Developing the playbook for successful events
Lots of ideas came in for the continued building of the playbook for successful events, an engagement that started with the first WiT Virtual, as part of its series in partnership with STB, on “Successful Meetings In A New World”. You can download Playbook #2 co-created during this event, as well as Playbook #1 co-created during the previous event.
From the ideas generation (we could hardly keep up with the scribing), it is clear that we have an industry bursting with ideas and enthusiasm for the new era it is entering. Bring it on.
Download Playbook #1 here.
Download Playbook #2 here.
• Here are some polls conducted during the event:
Note: The third WiT Virtual, as part of this series focused on the future of events, will be held July 7, 7pm-8pm Singapore time (GMT+8).
• Featured image credit: Sushiman/Getty Images