As in-person gatherings remain unsafe to attend during the pandemic, virtual and “phygital” hybrid events are here to stay in 2021. Event marketers now have 10 months of experience creating virtual gatherings, but they’ll need to focus on improving virtual event networking, engagement tactics and sponsor integration this year, according to a new study from Bizzabo.
The event software platform released a 2021 Virtual Event Benchmarks report, which analyzed 1,850 virtual events that occurred between July 1 and Oct. 31, while polling 400 event marketers.
“Virtual events are helping forward-thinking business leaders and marketers break down the barriers of place, cost and time, and navigate the coronavirus pandemic,” Alon Alroy, co-founder, CMO & CCO of Bizzabo, said. “We’re releasing these benchmarks to help leaders and organizations better understand how their peers are approaching virtual events and ultimately deliver more impactful experiences.”
Here are some of the key findings from the study:
- 80% of virtual event registrations were free in 2020. For the 20% of virtual events that weren’t free, the average price during the last six months of 2020 was $443. “Virtual event organizers have been less reliant on registration sales to break even on the cost of producing their events and are recouping their investment upstream through pipeline generation, pipeline acceleration or sponsorship sales,” Alroy said.
- The average event conversion rate from those who registered to those who actually attended virtual events was 50%. Those who attended were engaged about 53% of the time during the virtual events.
- 68.8% of event marketers polled said it was difficult to provide helpful networking opportunities to attendees; 67.7% said it was difficult to keep attendees engaged during sessions; and 36.9% said it was difficult to provide valuable opportunities for sponsors through virtual events.
“While virtual networking experiences will be meaningfully innovated in 2021, we have heard from organizers and attendees alike that in-person is irreplaceable,” Alroy said. “This is why we believe hybrid events, which combine the best of virtual and in-person events, are how organizers can best future-proof their event programs.”
The report also includes the following results:
- Conferences were the most popular virtual event, accounting for 43% of the events analyzed; meetings followed with 23%; and internal events followed with 13%.
- 58% of virtual events in Q3 and Q4 of 2020 relied on interactive environments that allowed attendees to go “on stage” and participate. These microexperiences required live attendance to be capped at 300.
- 80% of virtual event organizers enabled on-demand access for at least one of their live sessions, in an effort to create evergreen content and reach a wider audience, such as people in different time zones.
Alroy noted crafting smaller experiences with a capacity limit is one way virtual event organizers have attempted to meet networking and engagement challenges. He said this trend will—and should—continue in 2021.
“I expect more organizers to include smaller sessions that prioritize interaction as part of larger ‘choose your own adventure’ content programs, which in turn prioritize attendee agency,” he said.
