The reason why virtual events are the future for the corporate sector is quite simple; the budgets for conferences and large meetings have been cut to the bone.
This is the problem many agencies are now facing on a daily basis – ‘We want what we had last year, but for less money’. This, coupled with the fact that procurement are on a mission to find the cheapest vendor regardless of quality or track record, means that virtual events now have a real place in the market.
I truly believe that 5 years from now, Virtual events will be the norm, and here are some facts to support my argument; If you were to organise a conference for 200 people, each of whom need overnight accommodation and food, the hire of a room big enough to accommodate them for at least two days, a set and stage, crew, lighting and sound to add impact and an agency to pull the creative ideas together, write scripts and produce graphics, you’re looking at a cost of around £55,000 – at least!
A VirtualStudio.TV virtual event can cost from as little as £12,000 – and that includes everything, from a unique set design that supports your company’s branding, speaker graphics, scripts and speaker training!
Not only are VirtualStudio.TV’s virtual events cost effective, engaging and visually stunning they’re also pretty much carbon neutral too.
On a conventional conference, where do you think the set and stage goes when the event is over? I’ll tell you where, 90% of it goes in the bin – fact. That, together with the amount of fuel used to get everyone to the venue, the power used on the lighting rig, the batteries consumed by the microphones and the copious amount of paper wasted for registration desks, venue branding and changes to scripts all amounts to a colossal volume of CO2 emissions and waste.
Whether you like it or not, Green is the future, and so too are virtual events.
In the past virtual events have been an unknown entity, but by engaging with VirtualStudio.TV they’re now simple to execute, highly engaging, cost effective and convenient because they come with the added bonus of being able to be viewed when it’s convenient to the individual audience member.
They can be streamed to the internet or intranet, sent to an iPhone or personal mobile device, burnt to DVD; literally in terms of format the options are endless.
Virtual events are now cost effective, green, and simple to execute. Don’t believe me? One of the biggest companies in the world embraced the future when they staged their first virtual event which was broadcast simultaneously around the world. Have a look at the virtual events page on our website and see for yourself.
Virtual Events are the future – Fact!
Rachel Willis
Rachel@virtualstudio.tv
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COMMENTS
Whilst everything you say is true on a per head costs of £270 per head with effective message delivery or £60 per head with 70% less message delivery you need to consider which is more cost effective.
After all the objective is to teach or inform people and you might only get the one chance.
I work for several companies who last year cut their travel budgets for some levels of staff completely. For them, a Virtual Event is a real chance to connect with people who can no longer attend big company events. It's also a concept that fits nicely into the green agenda.
I’ve worked in the live events industry as a Producer for the past 8 years, and I can see a real change in both the delivery and the budgets for conferences. There is only so much money you can take out of the production budget, and for me VirtualStudio.TV is a great alternative for clients who are looking to save money, tick the green box and connect with their distributed workforce.
Thank you for your comment.
The 'Virtual events are the future - fact!' quote was essentially meant to generate debate amongst those who read the blog.
I agree with you that nothing can beat meeting and networking face to face. However, many of my clients are now looking for more cost effective ways to communicate and have cut many quartley conferences and opted instead to invest in live webinars and virtual events. Having said that they are still having a general company conference once a year to give people the opportunity to meet and network face to face. I think the whole 'virtual events' concept is a really interesting one that’s going to change dramatically over the next few years. I also think it'll be interesting to see how the next generation coming into employment will chose to interact as they're so absorbed in the current 'social networking' phenomena.