There is no denying the fact that nothing can replace face-to-face conversation and meetings.
But the recent pandemic showed us how we could save time, money and effort by replacing in-person events with virtual ones.
Where physical events bring people together and help them develop people-to-people ties, virtual events allow organizers to analyze and understand their audience’s behavioral patterns at a minimal cost.
While you must arrange meals, accommodation and event décor for guests at a physical event, you only need hybrid event software to conduct a virtual event.
To know which one is better, we have laid down five parameters through which we will put both cases briefly.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look:
1. Cost-effectiveness
Physical events involve a lot of costs, such as renting a property, hiring skilled staff, paying for attendees’ travel, arranging meals and beverages etc.
But virtual events do not require anything of those sorts. You can hire a virtual events platform, and they will customize the online space to fit your event.
Virtual events do not need to set up a theme, worry about decorations and event cards, etc. So, virtual event platforms are a cost-effective option compared to physical events.
2. Accessibility
Physical events may not be accessible to everyone. A brand may have customers and clients scattered across continents.
In such a case, it would be difficult for most people sitting across borders to commute to the event’s location at a particular time.
But virtual events defenestrate such issues. None of your employees, customers or clients have to leave their home’s comfort.
The virtual platform’s support staff will manage and set up everything for you; everyone can easily join the space.
3. Data collection
Data collection is one of the reasons why businesses choose to spend thousands of dollars and invite hundreds of people to a physical event.
In a physical setup, data collection is done at an entry stage where attendees register themselves for the event. The tracking process here can never be done with 100% precision because monitoring every person’s activity in the hall is tough.
But a customer interaction platform allows businesses to track their attendees precisely. Businesses can track their every move, from where they click to what they download.
Even their up-time can be monitored to ascertain how interesting the session was.
4. Networking
It is often believed that nothing can replace face-to-face conversations. But they can be a costly affair for businesses.
While people are looking for more convenient and cost-effective measures, virtual platforms give them exactly that through their advanced networking systems.
People can easily talk, listen, engage, vote, download and share documents. They can chat with multiple participants and share their thoughts on the business.
While physical events provide face-to-face interaction, they cannot give a fair chance to everyone to share the center stage. The altar is generally booked for a certain guest only.
Therefore, virtual events have a far better networking system where every attendee gets to have their say.
5. Giveaways
Physical events arrange certain giveaways like merchandise or a brochure. But that does not mean that virtual events do not.
Today’s virtual platforms facilitate games like spin the wheel and quiz competitions which provide gift vouchers as giveaways.
Thus, virtual event platforms entertain attendees much like physical ones by making their online interaction adventurous and fun.
To Conclude
After weighing both virtual and physical events on cost, accessibility, data collection, networking and giveaways, we can say that businesses would most likely stick to the new ‘go-virtual’ norm.
That is because virtual events are far more convenient than conducting physical events.
So, if you are a business looking to host an event shortly, we recommend going the virtual way. You can contact virtual event platforms and get your event customized according to your event theme.
