A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A DIGITALLY TRANSFORMED INDUSTRY
Cvent shares details of its 2021 CONNECT event
The first time most people saw Cvent Virtual Attendee Hub in action was when it powered the US digital version of Cvent CONNECT in August 2020 , showcasing our new technology to more than 28,000 global event professionals , marketers and hospitality planners .
For Cvent CONNECT Europe Virtual , which took place in October that year , another 8,000 online registrants got to experience the single largest investment in Cvent ’ s 21-year history and the resulting work of hundreds of product development experts , working remotely from home across multiple teams , timezones and disciplines .
One year on and , thankfully , the events industry has begun to reopen , but the role of the planner has changed forever . Those months spent up-skilling to partner with technology providers , navigate platforms and plan for virtual-only audiences has resulted in newly acquired expertise and a client requirement not to now abandon the broader reach of digital .
Hybrid event planning is the new challenge – how to blend the accelerated digitisation of events with our human desire for face-to-face connection , in order to deliver one overall experience for two different audiences .
As a result , event design is adopting TV broadcast rules with cameras tracking across the front of the stage , the use of green-screen studios to connect live hubs , and on-stage presenters addressing both the audience in the room and the one online .
Registered attendees now have the choice , right up until the day , whether or not to attend in-person . Greater flexibility to switch from being in the room
Reggie Aggarwal , CEO , Cvent
to watching online may have eroded the once relied upon social contract to show-up , but it ’ s also shifted the emphasis on to providing greater enticement to be a part of the physical audience , via enhanced networking opportunities and bespoke ‘ live only ’ experiences .
For those attendees online , content has been promoted from king to deity during the past 18 months .
In a virtual environment , without the distractions of venue , the show-floor bar , or bumping into someone you haven ’ t seen for a while , the online attendee ’ s focus is squarely on the content , so it needs to be relevant , engaging and delivered in a range of formats .
As both a technology provider and organiser of our own customer conference , we believe that the future of event planning requires a single platform for both online , in-person and hybrid planning .
It ’ s why we ’ ve spent much of the last year bringing all our solutions together into a single user interface for logistics and execution , audience engagement , systems of record and a single source of data truth .
Multi-lingual support , more participatory and engagement features , content monetisation tools and the integration of Cvent Studio are just some of the upgrades planned for the Cvent Attendee Hub over the next six months .
As Cvent ’ s Founder and CEO , Reggie Aggarwal said during this year ’ s hybrid version of CONNECT Europe in London : “ Covid has been a catalyst for innovation , likely to change the face of the events industry forever .”