Whatever happened to the notion of the virtual event? EW speaks to David Levin, CEO of UBM, and asks what role online showplaces play today.
When I came back to the media world from the world of technology, I was genuinely worried. We had a lot of people saying we could digitise everything. And I came from a world where infinite bandwith, Cisco, telepresence and all of that was very much a part. Our concern in 2005 was what type and size of event would be vulnerable to digitisation.
We had a big initiative that has run through this period. We made a decision not to run our own software – we found other people to do that for us – and we trialled that extensively. A couple of things that came out of this. The best news was that to the core big shows, it was not a threat. But it provided great engagement with people before the show, allowing them to make the most of the show, improving ROI; just making it a facet of the show.
Then there’s the niches that work. We have a huge outplacement fair for military personnel being made redundant to meet employers. It’s a natural fit because British military personnel are scattered all over the world and the employers they want to meet are in the UK, so we’re doing really well. We’ve got more than a hundred [virtual] booths sold to this show.
A booth is an information point in the show, one that makes you feel like you’re in the show. You click and talk to someone in the booth. The feeling, when people go to these, will be the feeling of going to an event. It’s not wall-bound and it’s not time-bound. The event stays online for a month afterwards. It’s live and staffed, but if you come afterwards, it’s like coming to an exhibition centre when the lights are still on, but all the people are gone. Crucially you can press a button at a booth and they won’t respond to you in real time, but they will get back to you afterwards. Submit your CV, set up a phone call and so on.
This was first published in issue 3/2013 of EW. Any comments? Email exhibitionworld@mashmedia.net
