Online Events: Advantages and Disadvantages of Virtual Meeting

A virtual event is an event that’s organized online, using a virtual platform to connect people together via the internet rather than the physical event within a four wall.

There are quite a number of benefits of virtual networking for attendees and the business owner or host.

Benefits of Virtual Conferences

The following are some of the benefits of virtual conference and platforms over physical events.

• Reach

With a virtual event, anyone with a strong internet connection can become your target audience.

You’re able to reach more audience from different locations, and when some of your main target audience are not available physically, you can still connect with them online.

• Cost effectiveness

Even if virtual events, like physical events, can be carried out with great effort, there are still no typical event costs such as renting premises, catering, security personnel. The costs for the event technology are also much lower in most cases.

• Sustainability

A virtual event contributes to sustainability. On the one hand, by saving the participants’ travel emissions and on the other hand by making event content available for longer.

• Real-time analysis

Although many key figures are already available for physical events today, a virtual event offers the opportunity to precisely measure the effective participation time in the respective online session.

• Limited networking

Although there are various technologies and approaches for how virtual networking can be operated, the fast means of interaction between the participants of the event can not be compared to physical event.

Factors to Consider before Planning Online Events

Note the following points if you want to host a virtual event.

• Conception

Similar to a physical event, a holistic conception of the event must be created from the invitation, to participation, to the availability of content after the event.

• Invitation

Consider whether the virtual event will be available to a public or private group of attendees. Depending on the type, you need protected access to the virtual event.

• Simple registration process

Make sure that the registration for the virtual event GDPR-Compliant is as simple as possible and that participation can be as seamless as possible without time-consuming registration.

• Testing

Before the implementation, test the technical conditions in terms of availability and accessibility of the virtual event, analogous to a main rehearsal at an event.

Make sure that your speakers also have a powerful internet connection and sufficient bandwidth.

• Security

Check the security-relevant aspects in relation to the end-to-end encryption of the solution and specifications within your company.

• Different time zones of the target audience

Note that an international target audience can be in different time zones. Allow access to the content outside of the actual implementation.

• Performance in relation to the number of participants

Clarify the possible performance in relation to the number of participants.

If there are several participants, the implementation of a virtual event may require specific internal or external network optimization.

Also note that some solutions are limited to a certain number of participants.

Disadvantages of Online Events

While there are many benefits of virtual events, there are challenges a business owner or attendees of an online event can face.

• Possible technological barriers

Even if there is a strong trend towards seamless technologies, there are always solutions that have technological barriers and, for example, are not available in certain browsers, require complex registration or software downloads.

An attendee does not have a control over internet network and the service quality, therefore, if there’s a problem with the internet network, it can serve as a barrier.

• Communication of emotions

Experiences and emotions like those we associate with events arise from shared experiences and interactions with one another.

Getting to the heart of the unique moment is a lot more difficult with a virtual event, since the elements of a physical event can be perfectly coordinated with a holistic experience of staging the content, light, sound, image and unique location.