It was and is a major blow to our sector, not at all what any of us wanted to hear. It hasn’t just affected Events Organisers, but everything in the supply chain of our industry. Even Event Tech businesses are not immune as we have seen in recent days.
However – there are still opportunities though to deliver meaningful content, experiences and events. It’s just going to be different for a lot longer than we all thought
I talked about VenuIQ’s Hybrid Event Manifesto previously. Everything our team has worked on within that technology platform is to support, not replace, live events. We believe in live. We believe tech should enhance that experience and in this current crisis, it should help organisers make their events as accessible as possible too.
We’ve spent lots of time working with customers on how to easily commercialise a virtual or hybrid event. Now, more than even just a few weeks ago, it seems important to share that insight with a wider audience to give organisers another revenue stream to consider while live events are on pause.
In one of our most recent events working with the team at Media 10 Ltd on UK Construction Week, Director Nathan Garnett said:
“We spent a long time looking for the right platform to put UKCW onto, having an event that was due to run at the NEC on 5th October. We came to VenuIQ with quite a short lead time to stage a 5-day event with over 100 hours of content, couple of key sponsors and 30 exhibitors.
The team worked with us and our last-minute demands to deliver an event with very few hitches indeed.
We have had some great feedback and we have grown our audience as a result with thousands of new contacts. Nadhim Zahawi delivered a keynote speech, we launch a number of new industry initiatives and provided a value industry virtual gathering, which softened the blow of not being together at the NEC.”
The challenge for organisers is to do something which still delivers value for sponsors and an engaging experience for speakers and attendees at the same time, without the need to resort to silly gimmicks or avatars. To connect them and to get the audience to all of your amazing content and exhibitors quickly, which in turn allows them to engage, feed back and even meet, one to one or in groups..
Here are some of the areas of the VenuIQ web platform that you can commercialise right now and give your exhibitors and sponsors an immediate return:
- Sponsored banners
- Sponsored sessions
- Sponsored Push notifications
- 121 video meetings
- Sponsored video round tables
- Sponsored welcome mails and reminders
- Headline sponsor for whole platform
There are still so many opportunities in our industry, but we know it can be hard to see clearly in the shadow of this coronavirus so to we’ve launched a free consultation to help discuss how you can make the switch from live to virtual. It’s easier than you think.
There’s also opportunity for AV teams and venues to operate in that virtual world, to deliver a really rich streamed experience. We have several already utilising our platform through our partner network. Some really creative videos are being created, often mixing both live and pre-recorded.
Use our knowledge, use our expertise in the technology sector and experience of working with people like you. If you like our platform, use that too!
We’ve already switched dozens of live shows to virtual in the past couple of weeks alone, often at very short notice just like for the team at UKCW. We have the capacity and with our auto-build function you can have your web platform, and even a native app customised for your event, within 24-48 hours and also offer in-house production services to support you with the delivery of your streaming.
VenuIQ builds everything from the ground up. It’s a smooth, slick experience which your users will find easy to engage with. Our team cares and we’ll be with you every step of the way.
We’re in this together. We’re here to help. So even if you just want a chat or to bounce some ideas around – get in touch.
Oliver Rowe Co-Founder, VenuIQ
Author: Adam Parry
Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.
