Innovation #2: Embrace Recommendation Engines to Better Match Audience with Most Relevant Content

the venue can support a video feed but no other data inputs. Platforms that can seamlessly weave together video with associated PowerPoint slides and other screen-sharing options offer a more flexible presentation environment and a better user experience.

Other technology features may be of significant value when trying to build hybrid events that bridge the gap between attendees of an on-site conference and those attending remotely. These include the implementation of automated camera systems that can capture video presentations from smaller conference rooms, extending the reach of conference sessions typically not large enough to merit video production support. Similarly, platforms that make it easier to incorporate video feeds from remote presenters into sessions produced on-site can go a long way to knocking down the perceived barriers between onsite and remote event attendees.

Innovation #2: Embrace Recommendation Engines to Better Match Audience with Most Relevant Content

While it never hurts to leverage technology in ways that add some “sizzle” to mainstage presentations, event planners also must remember to add some substance to the attendee experience that makes it more meaningful for event visitors. One way to do this is to shepherd attendees to content that addresses topics of the greatest interest to them.

Today, many popular consumer streaming services, such as Netflix, suggest programming of interest to their subscribers based on an analysis of their past viewing habits. This analysis is powered by machine intelligence solutions. Over the next several years, expect virtual event platforms to incorporate comparable technologies to better identify and suggest content of interest to virtual event visitors.

These recommendations go beyond simply suggesting content to users based on their registration profile. Rather, advanced recommendation systems can analyze how other attendees react to specific experiences offered within a virtual venue and use that knowledge to make recommendations to attendees with similar characteristics.

Virtual event attendees have a generally positive predisposition towards technologies that provide automated shortcuts to content of interest. As illustrated in Figure 3, more than 80% of those who attended a virtual event in 2020 say they would find technologies that “automatically recommend videos that might be of interest to you based on past viewing habits” to be a “useful feature.” A large subset of this group of virtual event users – 45% – describe such recommendation engines as “very useful.”

Event attendees are not the only ones who benefit from tools that match them with content of interest. WH believes that one of the key metrics for event planners over the long term will no longer be total attendance tallies for a given online event; rather, organizers will be graded on how long visitors stay at an event once they show up. The theory is that events that are better run and more engaging will have attendees that stay longer and experience more content than those attending virtual events that are not well-run.