Facilitate Virtual Events with the Help of Apps
A struggling industry fighting for survival
The global events industry is one of the most affected by the ongoing covid health crisis. With in-person gatherings banned or simply socially shunned, event organizers around the world are faced with a new reality that requires creativity and innovation at rapid rates to ensure survival. Still, not all is bleak. In addition to a whole slew of surprises and unpredictability, the crisis has given birth to unsuspected opportunities to offer new services and redefine value to event attendees. Regrouping, refocusing, and reinventing are some of the strategies that the largest players in the industry have adopted in the past year.
Events gone virtual
Amidst the crisis, many events small and large have been downsized, postponed or outright cancelled. This has led to financial losses in the billions for many companies in the industry – whether it’s event organization, catering, video production, printing, or transport and logistics.
As a result of the recent government directives to avoid nearly all group physical gatherings, many in-person event experiences are going virtual globally. Former physical event providers are having to redefine their entire business models to preserve a chunk of the revenue that was previously viable, and survive in the new reality.
Apps have been a key to the execution of successful events of any size for a long time, whether those events were online or in-person. Today, the importance of mobile conference apps that allow the streaming of online events and support virtual gatherings cannot be overstated.
Apps that support online corporate events
There are several new formats for events: hybrid events (online + physical), on-demand digital events, or fully virtual events. To manage any events of these formats successfully, two elements are essential: a responsive and user-friendly end-user app that offers engaging event experiences, and an end-to-end event management platform.
The main function in virtual events is usually live or recorded streaming through virtual event platforms, responsive mobile apps, or web apps. Event app providers must decide if video will be self-hosted or hosted on video streaming platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Twitch. In terms of features, the list below offers a glimpse into key functionality that event business apps should ideally offer.
Key features of online event business apps
- Registration/RSVPing and adding the event to a calendar
- Recording and replaying of virtual sessions
- A virtual space for networking, group, and 1:1 meetings: incorporating features such as video chat, messaging, group chat, live streams, etc.
- Seamless audience engagement: depending on the desire and goals of the event organizer, these may include:
- Live discussions, Q&A, and open-ended feedback collection
- Polling
- Voting
- Gamification
- Appointment bookings and meeting scheduling
- Event analytics: attendance, engagement, connections made, number of downloads, etc.
Building a robust virtual events enterprise app
If you find out that existing virtual event management apps and platforms do not offer you the needed flexibility or versatile back-end tools, it is perhaps time to consider building a custom enterprise events app to help you put up online global corporate events, multi-day subject-matter conferences, executive team meetings, sales and marketing kick-offs, product launches, mandatory internal or external trainings, certifications and re-certifications, keynote and motivational speaking sessions, and more.
The process starts with assessing what your virtual event attendees expect from event apps and ends with the goals of the event organizer and content providers. An experienced app developer can help you build dedicated, full-featured event management app and back-end system that meets all your virtual event needs. It’s important to conceive and develop user-friendly solutions that engage online event audiences to the maximum.
Working with an experienced enterprise app provider such as Pegus Digital, will make a large difference throughout the entire process: from the planning stages to completion and launch.
Contact the Pegus team of experts for a no-obligation consultation.
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