Ever since 2022, virtual events have taken a beating.
Let me give you an alternate take: the pandemic held up a mirror to the way we do events.
Everyone crash-pivoted online, running a format they’ve always run.
We learned that multi-day content-driven events suck.
Here’s my hot take.
Multi-day content-driven events after 2008 were already obsolete and sucky.
Before we had YouTube, Zoom, Skype… before we had free long distance calls, events were your one chance all year to learn, network, and do a deep dive on a topic.
We HAD to do content-driven events. They became the default way to run events.
The whole world was stuck in a deep rut. The rut of “this is the way we’ve always done it.” A few people on the fringes did events a little different. The majority of the world was set up for content-driven IRL events.
Then 2020 happened.
We had to go online. Zoom became a convenient punching bag for a tired format.
In 2022, people got back together in-real-life.
We all rode a big wave of nostalgia and got away with running things the way we used to one last time.
Then 2023, many events did the same thing they did in 2022, 2019, 2018….
Attendees, sponsors, exhibitors are feeling burned out.
I don’t think this has to do with in-real-life vs. virtual.
I think long content-driven multi-day events are toast.