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Producing Our Biggest Virtual Trade Fair to Date

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First of all, this has been a huge week for the events and experience economy world so this email is packed! And it has also been a huge week for us, producing our biggest virtual trade fair to date – here are the facts: 2 days, 1,700+ sessions in 22 live streams amounting to a total of 450+ hours of content, 3 locations, 3 stages, 120+ people working and an astonishing 1,200 speakers from 110 countries. It was a blast! But there is also a lot we could learn from producing this virtual trade fair about how the event industry is changing.

The show in many ways represents a massive shift. Not just for events, but how business is done in the b2b space more generally, and how digital events are an integral part.

I’ll explain.

For this event, PIRATEx hosted virtual sales training with exhibitors on how to sell most effectively during the virtual trade fair. We were impressed by the traditional firms that signed up, companies that epitomize the German Mittelstand, highly technical producers, who generally sell products by means of a middleman. The way things had been done for generations.

With some probing, we learned that the pandemic and digital events had helped shift many of those long-held attitudes when it came to sales. The firms we spoke with now felt confident and felt it was necessary to go directly to the consumer. The rise of virtual events over the past year was just one step that helped them realize it was possible. If things had stayed the same, they wouldn’t have felt that onus to change. Taking part in online events was the key that helped them realize an entirely new way to do business.

It’s an anecdotal case, but one that fits what we’ve seen with many of our event exhibitors over the past 16 months or so. It is exciting to see how online (and soon-to-be hybrid) events have fundamentally changed how companies are approaching their consumers and how far things have come in such a short time.

What changes will come next?

In any case, there’s been a lot happening this week when it comes to the events and experience economy. Here are some of my top reads!

 

#EventTech:

 

How to do it:

  • WTF is a hybrid event anyway? The new challenges & opportunities for events [The Drum] As the world begins to open up, more are looking to hybrid. But everyone seems to have their own take on what hybrid actually means. Here’s Drum’s take– and where they think hybrid is going.
  • How to Find Event Sponsors: Bizzabo’s 9 Step Guide [2021 Update] [Bizzabo] Longtime eventtech leader Bizzabo has updated their handy guide on event sponsorship. Some great takeaways here, including using different sponsor marketplaces, as well as how to target brands most convincingly with data.
  • 4 Tips for Hosting an Effective Hybrid Panel Event [BizBash] Ah, the panel discussion. A longtime mainstay of events and conferences everywhere, that’s fumbled somewhat in it’s pivot to virtual. How about hybrid? BizBash suggests putting safety at the focus when returning in person, as well as some other great tips in this piece.
  • 5 Unconventional Ways to Personalize Virtual Event Experiences [Tradeshow News] How I’d summarize this one– personalize everything about the attendee experience that you can, from your brand, to the exhibitor booths, to notifications to content and calendars, the more bespoke feel you can create, the more memorable your event will be.
  • Pumping New Life Into Associations’ Online Revenue Streams [PCMA] Some practical takeaways from a certain nonprofit on how they turned their annual event– now a virtual one– into a sustainable enterprise, with some important learnings on session length, data collection and registration. An excellent first hand account here.

 

Don’t Miss It:

That’s it for this week! If you want to be kept up to date on the innovation of the event industry, sign up to The Lookout Newsletter! Read more editions of our newsletter here.

Producing Our Biggest Virtual Trade Fair to Date

The Lookout Newsletter #30

Written by:
Felix Josephi
PIRATEx Managing Director