THE BUSINESS OF VIRTUAL
ACQUISITION AMBITION While some industries have taken a serious knock, the virtual events platform business is booming. Meetings reveals the hotspots.
T
he past year has been very difficult for business to survive without some component that allows for online engagement with their clients and audiences. This has led to the rapid adoption of digital technologies and, in particular, virtual event platforms to support these solutions. Based on a 187-page report titled Virtual Event Platform Market with COVID-19 Impact by Component by research consultancy Markets and Markets, the virtual event platform market is currently valued at US$10.4 billion (R157 billion). It is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 12.7% between now and 2026, when it will be valued at around $18.9 billion (R286 billion). “The major development and differentiating factor in virtual event platforms are the capability to engage thousands of attendees at once, the ability to simulate real-life venues and infrastructures, and ever-evolving attendee engagement solutions. Developing countries across APAC (Asia Pacific) and MEA (the Middle East and Africa) are expected to offer more opportunities for vendors in
20 • MEETINGS l SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
the market,” Markets and Markets says in its summary of the report.
OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
Several mergers and acquisitions within the virtual event platform space over the past year are indicative of how rapidly this market is growing. In mid-May, Cisco announced that it would acquire Socio Labs Inc – a four-year-old event management solutions company. The acquisition will result in the creation of a potent hybrid eventing solution. “We are excited to announce Cisco’s intent to acquire Socio Labs, a US-based, modern event technology platform designed to power the hybrid events of the future. With Socio’s end-to-end event management platform, Cisco will provide event organisers with everything they need to successfully host an in-person, virtual or hybrid event,” said Javed Khan, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Collaboration, in an official company statement. With the addition of Socio to its portfolio, Cisco is looking forward to empowering
event organisers to provide ‘inclusive’ and engaging experiences for both in-person as well as virtual attendees across each event, regardless of size and format. “Socio enables easy-to-use, highly customisable branded registration and ticketing capabilities, compelling and integrated web, mobile and event hall experiences, and delivers real-time analytics and actionable insights about event attendees, sponsors, exhibitors and more. With Socio technology, event organisers are able to foster continuous engagement with attendees by building and maintaining profiles and preferences, and serving attendees a personalised journey across the life cycle of all their events,” Javed noted in the statement. Socio has been ahead of the curve on engagement trends and built a virtual eventing suite to provide a solution for seamless hybrid events at the very beginning of the pandemic. “Socio shares Cisco’s sentiment that the future of events, like the future of work, will be hybrid and with that comes increased complexity for event managers to create inclusive, meaningful and measurable interactions for both virtual and in-person attendees. Socio offers powerful Webex technology to provide customers with an unparalleled hybrid event management solution to engage participants whether
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