New world. Online events boosted by the pandemic

The CES in Las Vegas, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona or the E3 in Los Angeles… We can no longer count the events, especially in the technology sector, canceled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. These demonstrations, which usually bring together thousands of people, are replaced by virtual events. What makes the happiness of the specialized platforms.

After the success of videoconferencing tools, such as Zoom or Teams, we are witnessing a profitable craze in the sector. Example with the British company Hopin. This startup had less than 10 employees last year, it now employs 400. It just completed a new fundraising of $ 400 million this week, bringing its valuation to $ 5.65 billion. Hopin’s business is booming, with more than 80,000 clients around the world. The sector now has several nuggets, such as Eventtia, Balloon or Livestorm.

These platforms make it possible to transform all types of events, such as professional meetings, forums, conferences, business seminars or even trade shows, into 100% digital. They offer everything you need to broadcast video conferences (live and reruns), interactivity with discussion spaces, automatic registration management, not to mention agendas for participants and statistics for organizers.

These solutions already existed before the pandemic. The companies concerned are hopeful that the excitement will continue afterwards. They count on the fact that people take a liking to these events, which avoid traveling for an hour of conference or taking an airplane trip considered to be polluting.

Technically, some online event platforms go very far, even with virtual 3D environments, like in a video game. There are still other things to be invented, such as Microsoft’s plans for holograms. While you may think that this will not replace all face-to-face events, it looks like we are at a turning point in this industry.