Transformational Trends in Industry Events: What can we expect in 2023?
Following the pandemic-driven period of disruption, industry events continue to faces fresh challenges and opportunities. 'Post-pandemic recovery’ has seen a dramatic shift from in-person to virtual in 2020, followed by an emerging hybrid model from 2021, and a new focus on returning to physical environments in 2022 and into 2023.
Event organisers, vendors, and audiences are re-learning to navigate the space, with new, innovative tech changing how attendees experience events. Audiences are becoming increasingly demanding for meaningful experiences, so event suppliers must deliver higher calibre forums offering rich experiences and extended engagement.
One thing is certain: the events industry is truly transforming. Here are some of the trends we at EI - Global B2b Media Intelligence have seen moving into 2023.
Unsurprisingly, attention is being diverted away from purely virtual events, with a renewed focus on returning to physical events, against a backdrop of evolving hybrid formats.
According to the AMEX Global Event Trends Forecast, there is ‘booming optimism and focus on in-person meetings and events’. Although the shift to virtual was necessary during the pandemic, it came with a cost: the challenges associated with replicating the networking element of industry events through a screen.
To overcome this shortcoming, event organisers invested in extensive Q&A and live poll features, gamification, and virtual networking options, however these have not drawn level with in-person offerings.
The first wave of hybrid events saw a movement where virtual and physical elements covered the same agenda, with in-person sessions often live-streamed or recorded and available to watch online.
Today, hybrid events have evolved to where virtual and physical elements are separate experiences with different agendas, produced separately (and often by different teams). Suppliers heavily promote networking USPs of physical events, with 1-to-1 meetings increasingly prevalent in sponsorship packages. Virtual conferences are maintained by many suppliers in their pursuit to continue attracting international audiences due to rising travel costs in the current economic environment.
Running a hybrid event rather than purely face-to-face also boosts its sustainability and accesibility, and minimises travel and venue costs. Having a different agenda for the virtual element incentivises online audiences as it offers them access to exclusive content not included in the in-person agenda.
AMEX Global Event Trends Forecast
A good example of a supplier using hybrid formats with physical and virtual environments kept separate is The Economist, with events such as:
The Business Innovation Summit featuring one day of wholly in-person content followed by one day of virtual, invitation-only roundtables.
Climate Risk Europe featuring one day of in-person content and networking followed by two days of virtual content, using fireside chats, panels and debates for maximum interactivity virtually.
Rising audience expectations mean that the quality of face-to-face events must exceed pre-pandemic levels.
‘Bleisure’ has been on the rise since 2022, with business leaders wanting to combine their personal lives with business travel.
1-to-1 meetings and drinks receptions are great, but insufficient in meeting delegates’ needs. Suppliers are taking an ‘experience-first’ mindset, unlocking valuable, in-person experiences to improve customer satisfaction, engagement, and retention.
Tactics include running events in unexpected venues, personalised marketing, and using innovative tech to elevate an event beyond its pre-2020 format.
Demand is rising for immersive experiences like VR and gamification, where delegates interact with virtual environments and objects. Vendors use this to showcase new products and engage prospects in new ways.
These head-turning experiences create buzz, both at the event and in the lead up to it, enabling brands to benefit from the media hype.
A good example is Nævis, an AI system set to debut as an ‘AI artist’ at an upcoming virtual reality concert at SXSW this year.
The Metaverse remains a hot topic in 2023. While event suppliers and vendors have begun exploring it, industry experts still view the Metaverse as ambitious, likely to see its full potential from 2024 onwards.
MWC Barcelona is a great example of an event that featured Metaverse experiences in 2022, including:
SK Telecom’s 4D Metaverse ride
HTC’s virtual museum tour
Qualcomm’s cooking lessons
Orange’s climb up the Notre-Dame Cathedral
Many suppliers are shifting from running many events in the same space to running a select, few events, with a ‘quality over quantity’ mindset.
Larger conferences are absorbing some of the more niche, topic-specific events in their media spaces that used to run as standalone conferences, adding them to their agendas as summits or streams. This is more common for regional, vertical-specific events. For instance:
TXF in trade/export finance used to run a Nordics event, which was recently absorbed into TXF Global, its global annual event.
MarketForce used to run MoneyLIVE Autumn (a fintech/payments event) in Spain; this event has transitioned into MoneyLIVE Payments, running in Amsterdam.
ACAMS, a supplier in the AML space, took some of their smaller, niche events on topics like Crypto AML and Sanctions off the 2023 calendar, and amalgamated these topics into their larger, regional events.
Many suppliers now offer ways to engage their audiences post-event, by repurposing event content across webinars, podcasts, on-demand video, and surveys.
While not a new tactic, it is becoming more widespread and intentional, as suppliers capitalise on the year-long engagement tail this offers, through follow-up targeting to reach new audiences and maintain existing ones. This helps to turn a one-off event into an ongoing community, which is important as event organisers see in-person audiences lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Return On Attention (ROA) is the new ROI. Many suppliers offer ongoing streams of personalised content to improve customer experience through on-demand content, housed in a content hub for ease of access.
Google I/O developers conference runs post-event videos, e.g., ‘Google I/O ’22 in Under 12 Minutes’, and has a 360-degree camera to record presentations for virtual attendees, with videos hosted on YouTube.
Microsoft Ignite hosts on-demand content on the event website, e.g., highlights videos from the in-person event, partner stories, attendee highlights, and a weekly webinar series, Learn Live: Post-Ignite.
Customer Relationship Management Conference in the retail space run post-event podcasts and webinars.
techUK's Tech and Net Zero Conference 2023 is running post-event podcasts and webinars on the main agenda themes.
There is a multitude of events offering post-event content including:
The focus on face-to-face means that marketers should think about how best to leverage 1-to-1 meetings and/or matchmaking services, and tracking this to help measure each engagement's ROI. For hybrid events with separate virtual and physical agendas, engagement should be prioritised based on objectives, i.e., virtual opportunities to reach wider, international audiences, and physical opportunities for fewer, high-quality networking touchpoints.
Where suppliers are streamlining event portfolios, marketers can capitalise on cost through smart supplier selection and partnership curation.
Personalised marketing may contribute to Return on Attention and can be incorporated into a post-event content strategy, taking advantage of extended engagement opportunities where credible performance is established. Post-event engagements – that can include on-demand videos, podcasts, webinars, and personalised content, can sit alongside any existing media campaigns for further outreach to target audiences.
It will be crucial to understand each event organiser’s stance on experiential activities, and the tech they plan to use at their events, to ensure you maximise the value of your partnership and stand out amongst competitors. This is particularly important for networking activities, as audiences expect innovative, engaging environments.
To read the full article on LinkedIn, click here: Transformational Trends in Industry Events
