Webinar ­fer­ences have long been a sta­ple of the pro­fes­sional cal­en­dar. Now, following a reces­sion that has slashed vacation expen­di­ture, the land­scape for functions is chang­ing. Sophis­ti­cated dig­i­tal plat­forms are enabling vir­tual envi­ron­ments that sim­u­late the ben­e­fits of genuine events, and atten­dees are begin­ning to shift to access­ing sub­ject mat­ter specialists and indus­try net­work­ing on-line.

But can the dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment genuinely dis­place brick and mor­tar activities, where eye to eye meet­ings and chance con­nec­tions can jus­tify the often high priced reg­is­tra­tion fees and travel costs? In orga­ni­za­tions the place hun­dreds of exec­u­tives and pro­fes­sion­als show up at sev­eral con­fer­ences a yr at $one,000 or far more each in complete cost, a vir­tual con­fer­ence at $five hundred can be eye-catching.

Mak­ing vir­tual con­nec­tions at an on-line con­fer­ence could not be an ade­quate sub­sti­tute for meet­ing a crucial customer face to encounter, but it would seem likely that vir­tual functions will com­ple­ment tra­di­tional con­fer­ences as orga­ni­za­tions need to bal­ance time and sources. Increas­ingly, vir­tual plat­forms are offer­ing price that has in no way existed in this mar­ket. It is significantly less obvi­ous think­ing that a vir­tual envi­ron­ment could be con­ducive to trade in lux­ury products, autos or foodstuff, but indus­tries where vir­tual con­fer­ences make sense consist of:

Knowl­edge indus­tries this sort of as med­i­cine, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and higher engineering
Nascent indus­tries where inno­va­tion clus­ters are glob­ally dispersed, this sort of as in brain health and cognitive overall health innovation
Dig­i­tal indus­tries exactly where the prod­uct can be deliv­ered via a mul­ti­me­dia structure
Higher edu­ca­tion

Here are twenty rea­sons why you might con­sider attend­ing a vir­tual convention:

Significantly less travel time implies more time for you at work or with your family
Dip in and out of events with­out becoming noticed
No flight delays, pass­port con­trol or secu­rity checks
Jug­gle perform demands with con­fer­ence attendance
No pack­ing and unpack­ing and won­der­ing whether your lug­gage will make it through to the other aspect
Obtain all con­fer­ence mate­ri­als and audio online for three months following the occasion
Display your manager demon­stra­ble price sav­ings in straight­ened times
Con­nect with a more substantial and much more world-wide audi­ence, several of whom could have not attended thanks to expense and vacation constraints
Pre­view and overview speaker pre­sen­ta­tions on your Computer although lis­ten­ing to other content
Eas­ily find con­fer­ence atten­dees and set up a con­fer­ence call, relatively than search­ing hotel lob­bies for your customers
No waste of paper on con­fer­ence brochures/fliers that only go in the bin once property
Save hun­dreds of thou­sands of gal­lons of air gas because of the aggre­gate attempts of attendees
Capture up on missed activities in the evening or your totally free time
Learn new abilities in man­ag­ing vir­tual tech­nolo­gies and on the web equipment
Entry the whole occasion from the com­fort of your very own home or place of work
No large gap in your bank bal­ance even though you wait for the expenses assert to obvious
Use the time you would be trav­el­ling to report back to col­leagues on the key classes
Con­sider the effi­cient the trans­fer of infor­ma­tion and how that will trans­late immediately to your bot­tom line
Reg­is­tra­tion Charges are as much as 4 instances significantly less than a “bricks and mor­tar” function
No expen­di­ture on accommodations and sundries

We hope that your next vir­tual con­fer­ence expe­ri­ence is a wonderful 1!