Conference & Meetings World Issue 106 | Page 33

Global Meetings Industry Day 13% foresaw a greater demand for live events. However, 17% thought there would be greater demand for virtual events and 8% thought the situation would be “unchanged”. More ammunition for those thinking that the stampede towards virtual and online-only events may be exaggerated came from the results of another poll which asked, ‘Of your previously planned live events for 2020, what portion has gone virtual/online?’ The most popular answer among the 6,445 responding was ‘A small portion’ (45%), while ‘None’ came second with 34% and ‘Around half ’ garnered 11%. ‘All’ brought up the rear with 3%. Participants sent in a total of 46,794 votes over eight polls and the full results are available on the www. GMIDGoesVirtual.com website. audio-visual company in Canada, was proud to have been a part of the technical team that made the event happen using their webcasting network services,” said Derek Orr Calgary Branch Manager, Av Strategies. And another key collaborator for the event was snöball Influencer Marketing. Rachel Stephan, the company’s Event Marketing Strategist added that, “in this time of uncertainty, working together with an amazing group of event professionals who united to create something magical, uplifts the spirits. It was a natural fit to put the power of snöball to do what it was built to do: amplify voices and mobilise individuals to become brand ambassadors and influencers.” For those eventprofs in need of a virtual hug, Brett Culp from Stage Story was on hand to sprinkle a little bit of Disney-style saccharine on proceedings. Co-presenter Miguel Neves summed up the effect of the whole event nicely: “You should never doubt what a small group of thoughtful, committed event professionals can do.” Nguyen said, post-event, that, “record or no record, we should be so proud to work in this industry. There is absolutely no doubt that when the time comes, we will be back – stronger than ever and ready to take on whatever awaits us on the other side.” So, what’s next? You can continue to ride this enthusiastic wave at www. GMIDGoesVirtual.com and stay connected. Meetings Mean Business Global Meetings Industry Day, which this virtual event fed in to, is an initiative designed by the Meetings Mean Business (MMB) campaign and designed to be an international forum for advocacy, awareness, and celebration for the meetings and events industry. At this #GMIDGoesVirtual.com event the MMB coalition put up regional leaders of the movement, who not only greeted the online audience, but joined in with a Canadian MMB-led discussion session which flowed on from the main event. Many donated time and resources to the success of the #GMIDGoesVirtual event and Michael Levesque, CEO of Resolve Collaboration, an organisation specialised in digital events and responsible for the tech implementation of the project, admitted that the task had been “incredibly challenging”. “Our team worked to pull together disparate technology platforms into a single unified solution to help a world record attempt,” said Levesque. “We did it with very little advance preparation, a constantly evolving agenda and with our team fully deployed at home offices. We were delighted that we were part of making history.” “Av Strategies, a national full-service ISSUE 106 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / 33