Earlier this month, Questex announced the creation of a “modern” information services model that leverages audience data to tie content and events closer together to create a year-round customer engagement framework.

The hope that live events would return in the fall is increasingly being replaced with the realization that many (if not most) conferences and trade shows in the U.S. will continue to be virtual or hybrids of online and in-person for the remainder of 2020 (last week Informa saw an 8 percent stock jump when it said select trade shows would resume in Asia but warned that live events in the U.S. won’t return until at least September). 

We're often told to think outside of the box. But a magician and a theater in Los Angeles decided to think about the box and have created a hit event. And it might just have a connection to our events.   In a new online show called The Present by magician Heider Guimaraes, ticket holders are mailed a box with surprise contents that they are directed not to open until their Zoom show starts. "How do you reach out of the computer and into the audience?" asked Matt Shakman, artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, where the show sold out a recent extension in 26 minutes and is now going into July. "The idea would be to hold something in your hand and be part of the process. That's how you make Zoom as interesting as a black box theater." (The quotes are from a Washington Post article Sunday.)   I was reminded of the show when I saw this suggestion today from a Higher Logic post: "Work fun swag into ...

I was watching Jeopardy the other night—okay, it has become the highlight of my exciting evenings—and in Final Jeopardy they asked something about an Ernest Hemingway novel and Spain. Oh my gosh, I shouted, happy to be out of a Zoom box for the first time all day, it's The Sun Also Rises!   On Monday, June 1, the sun will rise on SIPA 2020, our first-ever, two-day virtual annual conference, and the lineup is shaping up to be exceptional. (Early-bird prices expire on Saturday.) So figuring that you can get all the details on the website and with my current love of quizzes, I devised my own, based on six of the sessions. Good luck.   1. Fill in the blank: A Euromoney article today led with this paragraph: "At the start of April, Exabel, an artificial intelligence and machine-learning platform for active asset managers, partnered with 1010data, __________________ data provider to the retail, consumer packaged ...

Offer content—video, gamification, polling—and then bring people together around that. Speaking at the ongoing-through-May CES Deconstructed Jesse Serventi, founding partner, Renovus Capital, said (in a virtual discussion) today that we're really just starting to learn how to "have a keen understanding of how to engage an audience virtually. A lot of it is asynchronous. You're on an island. You're going through it by yourself. It's tough to engage. But then it's also synchronous where you might be watching many hours of content. That's tough too. The companies doing the best job are bringing in both. They might be starting off with prerecorded asynchronous content, watching video, doing a multiple choice quiz, and then coming together to do a group exercise around that and developing relationships—reaching you through multiple modalities. That's just a great way to engage the customer or get customers hooked in an even better way than live in-person training ...

Near the end of the London chapter meetup this morning—early this morning—events came up briefly. One participant said that, for an upcoming event that was moved to virtual, he was registering more participants, including people from much further away than normal. "Only snag is I don't have the confidence to charge enough money."   (I just heard in a panel discussion that a B2B conference organizer is seeing more people sign up from the same organization that she normally sees.)   "The way we're using digital tools now has changed so much to our advantage," another participant said. "People need to be connected. They are craving meaningful connections and communities around our content. Everyone [asks] what's next? Probably a combination of online training and connections. There's an opportunity there."   An extensive new report has been released by the Association for Computing Machinery titled "Virtual Conferences: A Guide to ...

There was a wonderful Zoom event last week, out of which I believe brought some excellent lessons for putting on virtual events—even though it was a very popular subject and a few drinks were on the respective tables. It was the 2019 World Series Game 7 Reunion Special featuring coaches and players from the Washington Nationals who were all simultaneously watching a replay of their victorious Game 7 win over the Houston Astros in late October.   The biggest lesson to come out of this Zoomcast is to take advantage of a medium's strengths. Zoom, or similar platforms, can put a whole bunch of live faces on the screen, have them speak in turn and give viewers that reassuring Brady Bunch feel. Facebook allows people to comment a mile a minute, but most importantly feel a part of things. Here are a few other lessons:   Have a smart, well-respected moderator. The event, which took place on Zoom but was available for fans to watch on Facebook, actually had tw ...

In an article on ASAE about how they turned their major conference into a virtual event in a week, American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (ACOFP) Executive Director Bob Moore wrote about their keys to success. It's obvious from that success that they had built a popular community.   More than 50% of the 2,000-plus registrants converted their registration to the virtual conference, getting a 25% discount for doing so. Forty-four percent asked for and received a full discount. One hundred people deferred their registration to the 2021 conference. Five donated it to their foundation.   Some interesting notes to add to their takeaways:   Email, of course, but also pick up the phone. They emailed and emailed some more about the cancellation and options. But then "two days before our virtual conference started, we sent a text message to the 400 non-respondents. The next day, staff called the 200 remaining registrants who still hadn't r ...

Whether you cancel or postpone an event should be "based on the information you have today. You have to look to your customers," said Alicia Evanko, executive vice president, Travel Group Global Events, Northstar Travel Group, during a webinar Thursday on Coronavirus and Your Events: How to Make Decisions that Protect Your Business and the Safety of Your Staff. (Members can watch the webinar or download a written transcript here.)   "For us our final decision to postpone our May event was customer feedback. You want to plan these things now. Because come the fall, everyone is moving their events. You want to get out ahead. Any event in May or June, it's a tough call... You have to consider who your audience is, how big your event is and if you want to keep it in the same calendar year. The sooner you get there the better."   Even in the couple days since that webinar, May events seem more fleeting. Evanko offered an example of an event that they wanted to m ...

Half the respondents who have attended a virtual event said they would do so again. But only a third of those who have not attended a virtual event indicated an interest in attending one. So there's an education component here. But a virtual event remains an attractive option because it helps offset the biggest stressors of attending events—being away and logistics—especially in these troubled times of people traveling less.   Education Week's Online Summits "are an ideal way for busy educators to access timely information about a range of critical issues in K-12 education easily by using their phones or desktops and integrating their learning directly into their usual workflow," wrote Matthew Cibellis, director of programming, live & virtual events, for Education Week, in his 2019 SIPAward-winning entry. "This cross-departmental partnership led by the editorial team's deep, rich content in a multitude of K-12 areas provides learners ...