The rise of Online Conferencing will Change the Events Industry Forever - But for the Better

We may not want to admit it, but it now looks certain that large gatherings will not go ahead at all in 2020. Organizers of events from marathons to music festivals to trade shows the world over are still hedging their bets on whether to cancel autumn dates. But in my opinion, this is blue sky thinking. Business leaders need to concede defeat and focus on contingency plans.

I suspect mass gatherings will be off our calendars until summer 2021. (BA have said they’re expecting a seven year wait to recover passenger demand to pre-COVID levels!)

I might sound defeatist, but this view comes after a lot of soul searching with my team at SaaStock. We made the inevitable decision this week to replace all our remaining annual conferences this year in LatAM, Dublin and APAC with online conferences. We’ve worked too hard for too long on making a real difference to the lives and companies of the SaaS community to press pause on SaaStock and deny the SaaS community the opportunities they can get from taking part in our events.

The Irish Times, which takes a keen interest in us because of our flagship Dublin event attracts so many people wrote this story about our decision this week.

As soon as we made that decision we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down and we are now buoyed by our new mission to revolutionize the concept of an online conference. We collectively made it our mission to produce a remote conference like no other - with all the magic of the physical conference brought online.

And we are behaving like a brand new startup, working in sprints, making an effort to be lean, not planning too far ahead, working on customer development. It feels like year one again! This is invigorating and stressful in equal measure - we've had to slash our 2020 goals by half.

Some of the questions we had to ask ourselves during this period was: 

• Have we got an 18 month runway to sit it out?
• How do we bridge the gap between now and summer 2021?
• Can we pull our imaginative ideas off?
• Do we pivot online entirely, or view it as a temporary measure? 

Over the years, I’ve had feedback from founders who’ve met future investors and major customers by attending a SaaStock event. Being part of our conference, I’ve been told, has helped transform founders into CEO’s. Cash Strapped companies into cash rich after securing investment. SaaStock has provided light bulb moments, new customers, new partnerships and community building. So, our task is to find and implement the tech and bring the value online so this can keep happening. 

We’re using Hopin to deliver our conference because we discovered it can replicate up to 80% of the features and benefits of our flagship Dublin event. As for the 20% of value we may lose, it turns out there is an additional 20% offering of new features made possible only by the fact that this is online.

And this is what brings me to my main point - that online conferences will showcase new features that physical conference organisers haven’t considered up until now.

For example our traditional keynote stage has capacity for 100k+ audience. Not something we are expecting, but the opportunity to reach a wider audience is there. We’ll have smaller workshops and roundtables, digitally assigned speed networking (no more hovering to wait to speak to someone), a ‘virtual exhibition’ space with humans manning virtual booths and the ability to continue with our investor-founder matchmaking which has seen hundreds of startups raise capital over the years.

Some screenshots from a recent SaaStock Session (our series of mini online events which we've launched in the run-up to our main event SaaStock Remote)

I believe that these sorts of features are going to become the norm. After a year of logging on to well-organised remote events, audiences in all sectors are going to start to expect them. When they go back to a physical conference and find that the Q&A at the end of the keynote favour the people who sit at the front just because that’s where a runner can get a microphone to them quickly, they won’t be impressed. When they go to the networking drinks they’ll be wondering where the technology is to pair people up fairly. They will demand more sophisticated organization, powered by technology.

Business leaders be warned. Whether events is your main revenue stream, like us, or whether you just host events as a marketing tool - you will need to reassess your format and adopt new tech-powered features or risk getting left behind.

Obviously there are downsides to remote conferences, but there are downsides to physical ones too. We are not shy to admit that nothing’s more impactful than face-to-face networking. Saastock Remote will not be able to replicate serendipitous bonding at a free bar - no matter how well organized we are. Our attendees won't be left with that memory of meeting their first investor at an impromptu dinner party, or bumping into an old friend on the conference floor. Though they should be hangover free!

But on the flipside, remote events are more accessible to more people: For founders who can’t afford a transatlantic flight and accommodation; for CEOs with young children; for disabled attendees; or introverted types who are daunted by networking. Not to mention the environmental benefits of no flights and the elimination of unnecessary waste.

They are also way more efficient: Delegates can dial in and out as and when it suits. they could watch 90 mins of content, take a break, do some work or help with home schooling, then log back in and hit the expo floor. They may only check in for the keynote or the 30 minute networking session and no one notices your absence.

This poses challenges for organisers to keep attendees engaged. But again, this could prove to be a positive for the future template of events because it will force organisers to be inventive and creative. At SaaStock for instance we are brainstorming engagement points like audience polling, where to position the Q&As, short quizzes and worksheets.

You might also get higher calibre speakers because now that they have to only give up an hour or two of their time, organizers stand a better chance of drawing in rockstars. We think SaaStock Remote is a case in point here. It’s our best lineup to date including David Heinemeir Hansson, the creator of Ruby on the Rails and Bill Macaitis, the former CMO of Slack.

I’ve been skeptical about online conferences in the past. But now I’m organizing one for 3,000+ attendees. I can see huge potential way beyond this crisis. 

I’m certain that even when we get back to our signature events in 2021 the SaaStock that our community knows and loves will have fresh digitally empowered features that we would not have otherwise thought of. We will adopt a hybrid approach and have online and in-person conferences picking the best features of both. I predict that the whole of the events industry will go this way.

As an industry we needed to shake ourselves up and digitize. It's a shame it has taken a global pandemic to give us a wake-up call.

Register your interest for SaaStock Remote here.