5 Advantages of Hosting Virtual Conferences & Events - Steady State Media - Pittsburgh Video Production & Digital Marketing
When you take a conference, training, or event and make it virtual, there are some things that are no longer a part of the tedious event-planning process to keep in mind. All of these things can save your organization or company a lot of time and money.
1. Meals, Coffee, and Snacks
Being sure that attendees are being fed throughout the day is always a large undertaking when it comes to conference planning. You must choose menu items for your live event and check on food allergies and dietary restrictions. On top of coming up with a budget for all of thee above, those are just a few tasks involved in the usual “keep the attendees happy, caffeinated, and fed throughout the event” process.
When it comes to virtual events, your attendees are all remote, so there will be no need for any type of food or snack budget. You won’t have to check to make sure the coffee pot is full unless someone in your own house drank the last cup.
*Tip to Remember* Even when hosting an online, virtual event, be sure to schedule in break times. People still need their midday snacks! The last thing you want is a hangry attendee blowing up the chat box because they didn’t have time to eat their Snickers bar!
2. Travel Planning
Even when it comes to your own staff, organizing travel plans for an event is a tedious task. Luckily, it is an unnecessary step in the virtual event world.
Think of all the time (and money) being saved when there is no need to book flights, pay for Taxi, Uber, or Lyft charges, hotel stays, alongside countless other travel expenses. You can spend more time planning your event marketing strategy and working closely with panel speakers and skip the layovers.
3. Invite and Host More Attendees
When you have an in-person conference, event, or training session, you must be sure to not over-invite. There are capacity limits and fire codes in conference rooms and hotel venues, which makes it difficult to plan for maximum attendance.
Hosting your event fully online allows you to invite and entertain more people than would be possible in person. Plus, attendance is likely to be higher since, as we said before, travel isn’t an issue. As long as a person has a quiet place to sit along with an internet connection, they can attend from their couch, or even a chair on the beach if they really want to.
4. Site Rental Savings
The venue location is online. This means no touring ten different spaces before deciding which has the best set-up for your attendees and speakers.
Think about how much time and money you spend researching and booking conference rooms, halls, or hotel lobbies. It would be a lot easier if all of your rooms were virtual and the event location was within an online or mobile app, right?
With virtual events, this is the case. Everything conference related is within an online platform. No chair counting or extra rental and set-up fees necessary.
5. Positive Environmental Impact
Two words…go green.
Not only is the virtual event a great tool for attendee convenience, it is also great for the environment. Many companies are conscious about recycling and waste reduction, but still use the office printer on the regular.
With a virtual event, all schedules, handouts, information sheets, and pamphlets are digital. Within most virtual event platforms, such as InEvent, files that would normally be physically printed, are uploaded and available to attendees within the platform in which the event is hosted.
Keep these five advantages in mind next time you are planning to schedule an event of your own. Virtual conferences and events seem to have many positive attributes in comparison to in-person events.
This content was originally published here.
