A new study released by Grand View Research has forecast that a steep growth in the global virtual events industry will be witnessed. The report went on to predict that online events will rise as much as about ten times by the year of 2030.
The type of virtual events estimated to grow includes the following –
- Broadcast events
- Live streaming
- Audio and video conferencing
- Corporate events like earnings calls
- Job interviews
- Industry trade shows
- Virtual corporate retreat
- Virtual press conferences
According to the Oxford Economics and Events Industry Council, the virtual event planning businesses have spent nearly $325 billion in the United States and supported around 6 million jobs on a yearly basis.
Why should we care about virtual events?
Irrespective of your geolocation, political beliefs, and industry, virtual events are growing to be the “new normal” of the event industry. The growth of the industry will lead to the expansion of diverse platforms for virtual events to choose from and host events on high-quality platforms at lower price points. Apart from the low price rate, these event platforms also continue to evolve with improved features and functionalities at a fast pace. Businesses can select the right options for your events by following the industry reviews and latest updates on those platforms.
Virtual events are more economical and convenient ways to attract both the best speakers and a larger volume of registrants and attendees from any country or region. Thus, a powerful and large gathering of potential audiences will only result in improved and expansive reach across the globe.
Virtually simulated events hosted on web-based platforms make it extremely easy to connect a large number of attendees for businesses that target international markets. Moreover, web-based event platforms feature several interactive audience engagement features, including Live Question & Answer (Q&A) sessions, polling, chat boxes, and many others.
Virtual events can also harness the power of sophisticated technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR) to create the fabric of physical events.
Also, virtually simulated events and gatherings since lockdowns started rising in popularity and use since lockdowns took effect both among event attendees, participants, and event organizers. The time efficacy and the flexibility of hosting and attending virtual events are projected to be fueling the massive market growth of virtual events by 2030.
Factors that lead to a steady growth rate of virtual events
The global market size of virtual events has generated around USD 77.98 billion in 2019. Furthermore, the growth will continue to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 23.2% within the span of 2020 to 2027 steadily.
Digital events enable users to various types of activities, such as video and audio conferencing, live broadcasting, live streaming, and many others. Virtual events can be hosted for various types of digitally simulated event purposes such as trade shows, job fairs, sales meetings, corporate conferences, and summits.
The increasing popularity of Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) amongst education institutes, corporate houses, governmental and other organizations, regardless of any industry is expected to boost the market of virtual events in this forecast period. UCaaS enables hosting multiple communications from a single platform to facilitate ease of collaboration and provide improved productivity.
Another factor that has led to the steady growth of virtual events is the Work-From-Home (WFH) or remote work policy adopted by most organizations before and after lockdown and social distancing imposed to avoid the community spread of the COVID-19. The work-from-home policies have led to increased opportunities for larger attendees and participants from diverse industries.
Companies are profusely using video conferencing and other virtual communication and collaboration platforms to host team meetings and client meetings. For example, Microsoft has stated that Microsoft Team has already exceeded 44 million daily active users by March 2020 after companies are increasingly switching to virtual collaboration platforms to perform various business processes with their remote teams after the coronavirus pandemic.
Finally, along with UCaaS-based models, Software as a Service (SaaS) based models are also gaining prominence in the industry from the Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) and thus, gaining a large number of the global businesses attendees and massive market growth. The virtually simulated event platforms are in extensive use among various sectors from healthcare, hospitality, education, and others that are striving to get an edge over competitors by hosting product launches via these platforms.
Businesses leveraging virtually simulated event platforms for product launches can directly communicate with their potential audiences and promote their offerings to those audiences. Thus, businesses regardless of any sector, size, or geographic location are estimated to grow considerably, being able to expand their worldwide reach and increased demand from a wider range of audiences from any country or region.
