Hubilo reveals the 5 trends that will shape events in 2022
The forecast comes as the events landscape continues to evolve and expand post-pandemic. Hubilo predicts that technological advances and shifting audience expectations will further drive growth in the events sphere, giving rise to a range of innovative virtual and hybrid solutions.
The metaverse will change expectations for event experiences
Love it or hate it, the metaverse is already impacting the events landscape and changing audience expectations, particularly among tech-savvy and easily distracted Millennials and Generation Z. To win the time and attention of the future’s dominant workforce, events will be less about chronology and speakers and more about exploration and interaction. The end of a standard webinar is coming near, being replaced with live-streamed VR entertainment and Oculus Rift parties as early as next year.
Virtual events go mainstream
As the pandemic is not yet over and new variants seem to disturb our come-back to normality, event organisers will steer away from jumping back all in and head first to physical events. Having experienced the breadth of benefits that virtual events offer, why would they? More businesses will leverage virtual event tech to create engaging ‘two-way’ gatherings, from movie premieres and fashion shows to investor roadshows and medical conferences.
Asynchrony is in. Traditional boundaries of time and place are out
Here comes a revolution to event hosting rules. As working models continue to shift and people choose when they want to work, there are no more perfect days and times to host an event. As such, the demand for digital, always-on content and smaller, bite-sized experiences will be on the rise. More businesses will debut their media platforms, allowing employees and customers to network at their convenience and eliminating the need to capture attention for the entirety of an event.
DIY events will help combat Zoom fatigue
Events have come a long way since the days of the PowerPoint-driven webinar, yet the screen fatigue is all-encompassing. Non-traditional event planners like internal communications and HR departments are being deputised to pull together virtual sales kick-offs and job fairs with zero training, having to meet the same event KPIs as organising pros. Thus, there will be a growing need to develop an ecosystem of expertise and support to help them with technical dry-runs, on-the-day monitoring and post-event analysis to succeed in the DIY event space.
Social activism will be fuelled by virtual event tech
As Gen Z increasingly occupy the events space, they are also keener to leverage virtual event tech’s broad reach to build communities with shared interests and values. The data-driven nature of political campaigns is bolstering the claim that social activism has a digital foothold, as it provides an ocean of comments for analysis to hone messaging, persuade the voters and gather extra donations. The coming year will therefore see more young people rallying online and more politicians utilising the virtual world to avoid the risk of super-spreader headlines in the press.
Liesl Leary-Perez, VP of Corporate Marketing at Hubilo said: “2022 is shaping to be an exciting year for the events industry. Hubilo is proud to be a key driver in the future of events, and we will continue to harness our deep expertise to deliver global impact and allow customers to be at the forefront of upcoming trends in the virtual and hybrid events space.”
Hubilo is the virtual + hybrid event platform built for engagement and event excellence. Hubilo's mission is to drive engagement - first and foremost - yielding greater business results. With a 24/7 fully dedicated customer success team, the industry’s largest suite of engagement and gamification features, and robust branding capabilities, Hubilo is the architect of the new reality for future events.
Led by founders Vaibhav Jain and Mayank Agarwal, Hubilo is headquartered out of San Francisco, with a base office in Bengaluru in India. Hubilo’s clients include names like Walmart, United Nations, AB InBev, Roche Pharma, Echo, GITEX, and several others across the United States, Europe, APAC, Middle East, and Africa.
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