Take a stab at this question: What percentage of virtual conferences run longer than two days?
5%
20%
40%
60%
The answer, according to “The Virtual Conferences Report 2020” just released from Tagoras, is that 40 percent run longer than two days and, in fact, 15.7 percent go for three days or more.
Here’s another: What percentage of virtual conference organizers charge the same for the online meeting experience as a comparable place-based event?
0%
10%
30%
50%
According to the new research, 30.4 percent of organizers charge the same, while the rest charge “somewhat less” (39.1 percent) or “significantly less” (30.4 percent).
As meeting professionals turn to online meetings as a result of the pandemic, many have questions about best practices and industry standards. The new 62-page report from continuing education consultancy Tagoras is a good place to start. Based on a 361-respondent survey and interviews with virtual meeting organizers, it provides data on a wide range of online meeting topics, from learning assessments and pricing to average attendance rate (as a percentage of registration) to sponsorships, as well as case studies that put the findings in context
Here are four thought-provoking statistics from the data-rich report:
• 43.8 percent of online conferences get no revenues from sponsors or exhibitor fees.
• Only 15.2 percent of organizers don’t charge registrants to attend.
• Just over half of the respondents said that their virtual conference attendance was lower than for a comparable face-to-face event.
• Virtual meeting platforms are all over the board in terms of functionality and adoption. Of the 24 virtual event providers named in the survey, only three of them—Zoom, GoToMeetings, and ON24—had been used by more than 10 percent of the respondents.
