Virtual Conferences Need to Step Up Engagement, Audio Quality, Says IDC

The sudden shift to virtual video conferences in 2020's first half -- due to the COVID-19 pandemic -- had “mixed results,” said IDC Tuesday. Few event organizers actively facilitated live chat to allow questions of speakers or enable audience interaction, it said. The report documented conferences that became virtual events hosting between 250 and “thousands” of attendees. Live events are an important source of information, and organizers can handle that well with streaming and content downloads, noted analyst Wayne Kurtzman, but networking is equally important to attendees. At in-person events, 86% of people engage in conversations by socializing, networking and developing professional relationships, Kurtzman blogged Thursday. In virtual conferences, 57% of organizers didn’t seek to engage attendees or enable them to engage as a group. Not providing an engagement channel “drives a sharp increase in Twitter conversations” with users sometimes breaking away from the event’s hashtag, making it “invisible” to organizers, “and the results are not always positive,” he said. Organizers and attendees said engagement, audio quality and networking need improvement, and closed captioning is needed. Calling virtual conferences the new “real world” events, Kurtzman said companies should offer attendees an easy way to engage and make a good impression “with video, lighting, and audio -- and usable, authentic content."