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Meeting & Event Associations Test Virtual Water

ITM and Eventia Announce Results of Event Experiment

Events industry association ‘Eventia’ and the “Institute of Travel and Meetings” have today announced the results of their innovative experiment on the delegate experience of real events versus virtual events. The two associations, who recently signed an agreement to form a strategic partnership, joined together to run an educational event for their members on the benefits and applications of Second Life technology. Themed “An Experiment with Second Life”, the two partners ran the same content in both a real-life scenario at the NEC exhibition Event UK and through virtual Second-Life technology the very next day. They then surveyed delegates about their experience. The results of those surveys show:-

• Delegates scored registration and joining instructions 11% higher for the live event than the virtual
• Speaker feedback was consistently better, with an average 9% higher scores, in the real life event versus the virtual
• Ease of interaction with delegates and speakers was scored higher in the virtual conference than in real life by 2% and 10% respectively
• Those attending virtually would have expended approximately 690 Kg of CO2 by attending the real life event
  commenting on the experiment, Paul Tilstone, ITM CEO said, ”Those who attended the virtual event seemed to comment very favourably on the format but there are clearly some lessons to be learned on the engagement with delegates prior to the event and people preferred hearing from real-life speakers in the flesh. The statistics on interaction, however, are interesting as it demonstrates that virtual technology actually aids interaction rather than hinders it as one might expect, so clearly this aspect could drive the technology application for certain types of event”

Izania Downie, Eventia CEO, presenting her association’s views on the experiment, said, “It was a really interesting exercise and demonstrates the exciting areas we can work together on as two associations coming at the same space from different angles. I think the results highlight that there is a potential application for the technology in the events arena but the evidence to date seems to suggest it is predominantly on a complimentary basis to real-life events and won’t replace the benefits people get from face-to-face interaction.”