Forum - August 2011

Why PCMA Hosts a Virtual Event

PCMA is an organization of more than 6,000 meetings industry leaders. It considers itself an incubator of ideas for the meetings industry: PCMA takes risks so meeting professionals don’t have to.

Although PCMA had webcasted a few sessions at previous meetings, its January annual meeting, 2011 PCMA Convening Leaders in Las Vegas, was the first time the organization had immersed itself and its audience in a virtual event. Using the InXpo platform, PCMA hosted a virtual extension of its onsite meeting to showcase how such an event could successfully play out, and how its members could replicate the format for their own meetings.

What the Meeting
Included
More than 60 percent of PCMA mem-
bers attend Convening Leaders. One
challenge the association faced, there-
fore, was: How does it create a virtual
experience that doesn’t detract from the
value of the face-to-face event?

Lessons Learned Holding a virtual event amounts to planning and holding an additional meeting. It is not simply broadcasting sessions on the Internet. It takes a strong leader, a lot of work, learning a whole new set of terms and understanding the challenges that come with hosting a second meeting during the association’s busiest time of year. Most importantly, however, it takes buy-in from the entire staff, from the very top to the very bottom.

Time was a huge factor. PCMA learned that it should have included more time up front for planning, as staff realized midway through that they would need to dedicate more time to the virtual event.

The planning process is time-consuming because your decisions intimately affect event specifications, audio/visual requirements, Internet drops and more. Speaking of which, PCMA also realized that it depended on the expertise of its audio/visual company, Freeman, a great deal. They helped PCMA understand what equipment — lighting, electrical, etc. — was needed, and provided a producer that proved essential.

Prior to its main virtual event, PCMA hosted two others that proved critical to its success, as they taught staff how many staff PCMA would need, what audio and video issues might arise, and how much confusion might occur with registration and logging in to the system.

Why PMCA Will Continue Hosting Virtual Events

Simply put: PCMA met its goals, which were to demonstrate the technology, showcase the association’s brand and education to a new audience, engage in a new way those who were unable to attend in person and encourage attendance at future face-to-face events.

Because many meeting professionals worry that virtual events will hurt face-to-face meetings, that last goal was perhaps the most surprising: Fifty-nine percent of attendees said their experience with PCMA’s virtual extension made it more likely they would attend a future face-to-face event, with 35 percent saying it might make it more likely.