The return to normal or the new normal is underway. The event industry, like any other, has adapted to survive, and digitization has been its lifeline. There has been a lot of discussion about the benefits or not of the digital revolution in the field, and the discussion remains open.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Many today believe that hybrid events are the future. It is true and it is false. If everyone brings a solution to a challenge, the prolonged cohabitation could create a shock of cultures precipitating the fall of trade shows as we know them. To save this industry, we must fight for a return to 100% in-person events.
Talking about a virtual revolution as an inevitable phenomenon ends up making people forget that this drastic shift that began in 2020 is an adaptation in the Darwinian sense of the term, due to the impossibility for people to gather physically. Adopting the virtual was a matter of survival to overcome the challenges of the moment. Without the pandemic, would there have been such a spontaneous surge towards the virtual?
We cannot deny certain advantages of the virtual such as the ease of access and the quasi-absence of limitation of the number of participants; economy of means to learn or keep abreast of trends; reducing waste, travel and accommodation costs; a return to basics; removal of geographical constraints, etc. However, it seems premature to consider the virtual as the essential of future trade shows. Do we want to take the risk of seeing them reduced to a simple collection of content to be viewed in the tranquility of one’s home?
Let’s go back to the origins. What is an event?
An event is a highlight, ephemeral… and that’s why we want to go there. You have to be there, be part of those who were there. An event is meetings. We come together and we remember that together we go further or simply somewhere… We share similar experiences, we support each other.
Before the pandemic, an event implied an activity with an in-person audience. A first step was taken when we had to add the expression “in person” to “event” to remove the ambiguity as to whether or not an audience was present. Then from “in person”, we moved on to the neologism “face-to-face” as opposed to “remote” or “virtual”. A remote event, is it still an event?
If participants are asked what impact the last in-person event had on them, they will answer: the energy of the crowd, contact with people they would never have met without moving, a look new on their project, the opportunity to (re)find their motivation, etc.
An event must offer a unique and attractive experience to the participants. However, the biggest challenge of hybrid events is to engage two audiences in different places: two experiences, two events!
By wanting to preserve the hybrid, it is not an enriched formula that will take root, but indeed the face-to-face component that risks being emptied of its meaning or simply disappearing. We are convinced that to save the events, people have to move, otherwise soon we will no longer talk about events as such.
The question we should ask ourselves is not if the new model will replace the old, but if we want to keep what is the essence of an event. Judges and parties, event promoters will observe in the weeks to come what may be decisive developments in their industry. How not to feel helpless?
An initiative is better than a wait-and-see attitude! It is in this context that Expo Entrepreneurs is today launching a campaign inviting people to come together behind the slogan “A single meeting can change everything” and to use the keyword #jyvais… and of course to travel to participate in events. !