"If an outcome from the pandemic is the ability to bring even more great minds to business events whether in person, or remotely and seek more conscious and meaningful outcomes together, the future certainly looks promising for the events industry".
Robin Miller
Director - Sales (Conferences & Events)

Objective

The application of techniques we are accustomed to seeing on live broadcast TV are certainly attention-grabbing and as this technology continues to develop quickly, the benefits of this format in engaging a wider audience are clear. Information is digestible and most importantly, easily accessible.

We learnt how Microsoft’s annual ‘Build’ event for developers and IT professionals was entirely virtual this year and among the many positive post-event statistics,  we heard how their participants from Africa grew from 28 at the prior physical edition in 2019 to over 6,000 connecting and learning together in the 2020 virtual edition – the legacy potential from such inclusivity is just staggering.

Similarly, the ICCA Congress this week provided ADNEC with a platform to curate an internal ‘Conference Learning & Development Week’ where ICCA sessions were shared to an internal audience of 60+ colleagues from across the organisation, thereby rapidly expanding the understanding of the trends which have been identified in the Kaohsiung Protocol and in turn prompting dialogue on how ADNEC can incorporate appropriate innovation into all aspects of venue operations.

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Outcome

Annual congresses most often attract only a handful of attendees from many organisations, we ourselves at ADNEC typically send two delegates to the ICCA Annual Congress. Inevitably, despite best efforts to provide knowledge exchange, the second hand delivery of content remains somewhat diluted.

It is therefore clear that one of the key benefits of the hybrid format is the ease of knowledge transfer and inclusion, as well as the expansion of the sheer scale of events. All delegates can benefit first-hand from the presentation of an engaging speaker either live, or recorded and at a time most convenient to them and post congress dialogue is richer in applying the learnings to one’s own work environment.