Virtual Events & Mobile Apps are HOT at PCMA, Vegas

First time for this Maven at the PCMA annual meeting: Convening Leaders, January 9 – 12, 2011, in Las Vegas.  PCMA stands for Professional Convention Management Association.  This year it was co-located with the Virtual Edge Summit. 

I decided to check out the summit for a few reasons:  our video maven, Allison Gerlach was working the event as part of the Freeman crew, outgoing Chairman, Kati Quigley (Microsoft) is someone I highly respect, and PCMA is an organization that I’ve been interested in joining for a while. 

Allison & Jen at the PCMA Final Lunch

Trends were pretty much as expected.  The continued importance of face to face events, how to deal with content, and how to manage or merge with virtual event platforms.

There were 3 players in the virtual space that had either longevity in the industry or super cool platforms.  They were INXPO, UNISFAIR, and Social 27. INXPO and UNISFAIR being first to the gate with their platforms and Social 27 looking really slick and the only Microsoft.NET, Windows Azure based platform.

PCMA Mixer at Hard Rock Cafe on The Strip

The other buzz was about mobile applications – there were too many vendors to list with many, many different plays in dealing with event content.  Mobile apps for events will be come a standard in this industry.  It will be interesting to see who bubbles to the top.

The best piece of information I received at the conference was a brochure created by Michelle Bruno of Bruno Group Signature Events called the Buyers Guide to Mobile Apps.  An extremely well written piece that breaks down what to look for in a mobile app for your business.

I’ll definitely be checking out the PCMA annual meeting again in the future and highly recommend this organization to those new to the industry and long-timers as well.  I’m looking forward to seeing what value membership in PCMA & my local chapter brings to my business.

Heather at PCMA

 

Cheers, Heather

Head Maven, www.creativemaven.com

Can My Avatar Have A Squeezie Ball? – Virtual vs In Person Events

A colleague of mine Ike Singh sparked an interesting discussion with his post on “10 Things I Won’t Miss About In-Person Events“.  Being one who could ship an elephant from Dallas to Alaska (and then also find the trainer a pair of red hot pants 2 hours before the show), I enjoyed this post immensely.  

Attendees in the house

 

80% of the events Creative Maven works on are in person without a virtual component (meaning where attendees have an avatar and go into the virtual world of the event).  All events have an “online” or “app” component these days, that has not changed and is the standard.

 

Quality vs Quantity:   That said I have seen the type and number of attendees change at events.  Whereas in the past a company’s entire team would attend (those who should be there (decision makers or sales people), those who are newbies being thrown in the frying pan and the exec/sales boondoggle for a job well done), as of late that number has been cut to (those who should be there and maybe a newbie to help set up the booth or handle their exec).  So there is a trend of attendee quality over quantity it seems these days. 

Enter the PRIUS:  With that in mind, I believe the true dawn of the Hybrid event is upon us.  For the quantity part of the attendee equation and continued comfortably of the general public with mobile apps, gaming avatars and gaming on Facebook – more and more people are embracing the “V” in virtual.  These virtual attendees benefit by actually reviewing the content of sessions and collateral posted by exhibitors.  Many times the content is the piece that doesn’t trickle down to someone who stayed back the office.  Now it can.

Butts in Seats:  As theater producer back in the day I hoped for high artistic quality and BIS.  Producing theater is tough enough, you must have an audience….  Same thing for events.  Producers these days are working like mad to entice attendees and sponsors to pay, participate and attend.  In this or any economy, the ROI has to be there for attendees.  Events are expensive to produce and I do think the virtual “seat” is going to become an interesting commodity as it is sellable and quantitatively more trackable.  Thus ROI-showable.

Love to hear about events that you are attending or producing – are they mostly in-person/online or hybrid and thoughts you have about them.  Feel free to have the discussion on Ike’s post. 

Ah, first day of the work week in 2011.  Welcome back y’all!

Head Maven

 

About Heather Newman