Events are still in a constant state of evolution and adaptation as the industry finds its footing post-pandemic and settles into a new balance of in-person and digital experiences. Organizers, attendees, and exhibitors alike have been thrilled to return to in-person events, but they haven’t been without their challenges.
A new report by ExpoPlatfom, Event Tech Returns to Live, indicates that achieving good exhibitor ROI is currently the biggest challenge facing eventprofs, cited by 66 percent of respondents as their top priority.
“There are all manner of ways exhibitors measure ROI. Lead-times and the sales pipeline for big events in particular can be very long in our industry – often several years for the big association events,” said IMEX CEO Carina Bauer in the report. “As an organiser it’s our rebooking rate that tells the biggest story. Exhibitors are mindful, particularly when budgets are tight — they don’t tend to participate in shows that don’t offer a proven return on time and investment.”
The next biggest priorities were a seamless experience across all platforms and pre-pandemic audience levels. Many events are still struggling with lower the normal (aka 2019) attendance numbers, but it will be interesting to see how they continue to recover and whether the benchmark for “normal” may eventually shift. The world has fundamentally changed, and it may no longer make sense to compare pre- and post-pandemic numbers as an apples-to-apples comparison.
In terms of technology features that event organizers still find important, the availability of on demand content after the event took the top spot, followed by lead retrieval — which ties in closely with the need to prove exhibitor ROI — and an event mobile app.
Questex CEO Paul Miller noted that the priority of improving exhibitor ROI at live events and the need for lead retrieval tool are “symptoms of marketers getting better insights into webinar, virtual event and digital marketing campaigns and now they have experienced that they want more from live events.”
This is certainly something the industry is experiencing, although many organizers struggled with engagement during virtual events, there’s no question that digital mediums are superior when it comes to capture data insights, and the use of technology will be crucial moving forward to gather the same valuable data from in-person events.