Physical events are not always possible, as COVID-19 has shown us. And while a lot of events across the world have been canceled, we’ve also learned that people are willing to attend virtual events.
In fact, virtual events can drive more attendees when they’re organized properly.
Benefits of an Online Event Versus Canceling
Events take a lot of time and money to set up. You have to spend time finding a venue, marketing, finding sponsors and preparing for the event ahead.
When you cancel, you’ll incur additional costs and risk attendees losing interest in the event.
Opting to host an event online rather than canceling benefits organizations in numerous ways:
- Potential to lose attendees is reduced
- Marketing dollars can be recouped
Online events have a lot of benefits that are either harder or costlier to achieve compared to physical events. With an online event, you’re able to enjoy:
- Greater flexibility
- Higher engagement from attendees
- Easier scaling that allows your organization to hold events with 10,000+ attendees
- Greater reliability with no concern of weather conditions
- Comprehensive reporting and analytic data
There are many platforms that allow people to hold virtual events.
They provide you with a lot of the features that you’ll find more difficult to implement into a physical event. Analytics and reporting are robust, so you’ll be able to have a better understanding of your audience.
Eventbrite Events That Went from Live to Online Events
COVID-19 forced a lot of event organizers to change plans and go from live to online events. A few of the world’s events that continued on with a virtual event include:
- SEALKIDS. A group dedicated to supporting the children of former and active Navy SEALS. The organization had to cancel fundraising events this year due to COVID-19. The group decided to use Power of Us Hub to launch Incentivize Giving with Exclusive Content. The initiative allows for virtual fundraising via webinars. Chris Fussell, a former Navy SEAL and best-selling author, led the first webinar and discussed leadership through adversity.
- GamesBeat Summit 2020. The Summit held their first online virtual event, and attendees told organizers that the event was a major success. Event organizers claim that their plans kept changing and that it was a challenge to hold their first virtual event. The event had 121 speakers, 1,800 people registered on Zoom and spanned 59 sessions. Practice sessions took place, more speakers were booked to fill time gaps and speakers recorded talks on wired connections.
A lot of prep work and variables go into play with a virtual event, but they can be a major success when enough time and attention is given to the process.
Choosing the Right Technology
You’ll want to focus on two main types of platforms when organizing your event: Registration and video. There are a lot of technologies that can help you make your virtual event a success:
Event registration technologies:
- Eventbrite
- Fonteva Events
- OneCause
- Ticketbud
- EventOn
Video platforms:
- Facebook Live
- Instagram Live
- Zoho Meeting (up to 100 attendees)
- GoToMeeting (up to 3,000 attendees)
- EZTalk (up to 10,000 attendees)
- EZTalk (up to 10,000 attendees)
We recommend using Eventbrite and Zoom to transition to online events because they work seamlessly together to make planning an online event as easy and fluid as possible.
Eventbrite provides tools that enable organizations to make the move from physical to virtual events as smooth and hassle-free as possible. Eventbrite’s deep integration with Zoom makes it the perfect platform to host live events attendees will love.
The combination of Zoom and Eventbrite make it fast and easy to transition from offline to online events.
Sync your Eventbrite Data into Salesforce
If you are using Salesforce and would like to sync your Eventbrite data into Salesforce, try out our Eventbrite Fusion application. Eventbrite Fusion allows you to seamlessly sync all of your data into Salesforce for quick and easy data analysis.