The Climate Week Ends but the Efforts Don’t Stop!
We’re back again with another installment of the Lookout, our weekly newsletter on the future of events, event technology and the experience economy. This past week we and more than 170 other global companies have been part of the LFCA Time For Climate Action week. This group effort was directed for consumers and businesses to once again think about the opportunities they have to become engaged in climate action. And although far from perfect, one such effort can be hosting online events rather than physical ones. Moving events online is a great way to lessen our impact on the earth, but there’s a lot more that we can do. As part of this campaign, we’ve been sharing during this climate week what we’re doing and what each of us can do to take part. PIRATEx is proud to completely offset our carbon emissions, use green website hosting options and use responsible business travel options. Join in:
What You Can Do In 5 Minutes to Help The Planet
Building a Sustainability Program into your Organization
Climate neutrality in the event space with Plan A
What Is the Environmental Impact of Virtual Events? [Ecosystem Events]
Oustide of the Climate week, here’s what’s been on my radar, and what you won’t want to miss from the events world this week:
#EventTech:
- Zoom Launches Apps Fund to Invest in the Next Big Thing when it comes to Experiences [Zoom]
- Virtual events don’t have to be tiresome: Okta came up with a new way [TechRepublic]
- Inside Facebook’s Purposefully Thematic Virtual Internal Event [Event Marketer]
- Eventdex Launches Clubhouse-Style Meeting Rooms for Online Events [PR]
- Zoom addresses academic freedom and censorship concerns [Inside Higher Ed]
- PRG Creates Digital Studios Worldwide to Meet Virtual Production Demand [PR Newswire]
- eTechSuite launches new virtual platform eMeeting [Exhibition World]
- IMEX announces new digital platform, BuzzHub, from 12 May [Exhibition World]
- Half of future B2B events will be completely virtual and “pandemic-proof”, finds LinkedIn research [Eventtech Live]
How to do it:
- Why Two-Way Engagement Is Key For Virtual Benefits [BizBash]
- Virtual running events and races – your complete guide [TechRadar] We love these options to help boost engagement and build connections between your attendees!
- Survey Questions to Ask Attendees and Sponsors After a Virtual Event [Associations Now]
- How to Organize a Virtual Summit for Your Company from Scratch [Business 2 Community]
- Licht bei Digital Events – ein oft unterschätzter Erfolgsfaktor [Beeftea]
- Build a Convincing Case for Virtual Event Attendance [Associations Now]
- Adapt and grow: How the creative industries embraced the live stream opportunity [IBC]
- Forget the medium, focus on the experience, says Top Banana [MIT Magazine]
- Virtual Event Monetization: 9 Ways to Make Money Hosting Online Events [Aventri]
Don’t Miss It:
- CEIR publishes second part of its Global Virtual Event Trends research [Exhibition World]
- Less than half of UK salespeople have attended a virtual event in the past year – Netimperative [NetImperative]
- Are Apple and others’ tech launches a better watch because of Covid? [BBC]
- Edinburgh Festivals Will Go Ahead, in Person and Online [New York Times]
- AIF: The festival season is ebbing away [Access All Areas]
- Information about the Events Research Programme (ERP), paving the way for larger audiences to attend sport, theatre and gigs safely this summer [UK Government]
- How Important is Audio for Your Virtual Events? [UC Audio]
- This is your brain on Zoom [TechCrunch}
Closing thoughts
The Future of Events from Collision and All Seated Forward Together: I’ve been busy this week, outside of our own events taking in Collision’s Future of Events, and Allseated’s Forward Together Europe. These were two very different takes on what event organizers can do when it comes to building memorable experiences for attendees.
In both events, as well as a number of conversations I’ve been having over the past weeks, there’s been one main, overarching topic– hybrid events. But I think the discussion of hybrid events somewhat masks the much bigger elephant in the room– going back to physical. From our vantage point, many of the drivers of the event world are fully committed to getting back to physical events, of which, an online event will always be a component. It raises a lot of questions for me as an organizer, on how you deliver expectations for attendees and audiences across two mediums. Many of the conversations were largely speculative as we don’t yet have great test cases for hybrid events yet. We’ll have to see. As the conversation of hybrid events seems to grow and grow, it leaves me wondering where we’re left with completely digital, and virtual events. We’re doing some great things with completely online events, but there’s much more work that can be done to get these events right. Because, well in Germany at least– we still do not have a date to be heading back to physical events. We must be committed to online events for the time being, getting them right, and really delivering to all stakeholders involved. I’ve seen how its possible. What do you think? Read more editions of our newsletter here.

The Lookout Newsletter #22
Written by:
Felix Josephi
PIRATEx Managing Director