Great post – lots of excellent discussion. Though I want to ask this question: Under what conditions would it make sense to charge attendees?

Some of the criteria that I came up with were:
> When your event is sold out.
> Your community is distributed around the world.
> When you have a community that is much larger than the event.
> When the event is a “pilgrimage” type of event like – TED, BlizzardCon, MacWorld, World Economic Forum, etc.
> When your event community is passionate.
> Your Audience’s Social Technographs Profile (see Groundswell)

When I look at the list “passion” jumps out at me the most. When I think about Passionate fans – I think about Italian Football (soccer) fans, Duke Basketball fans, etc. Some of these people want to be a part of the event in any way possible. in my mind, these are the people that will be willing to pay for virtual access.

So, if you have a lot of passionate people that can’t come to your event – I think you could have a virtual goldmine. However, if your event community does not have a burning passion around your event -then I don’t think you can charge them for virtual access.

Here are two examples of events that have charged for virtual access. One event has passionate fans and looks like a wild success – while the other does not.

(1) Blizzard Con – they had 20K people onsite (sold out) and tens of thousands of people watching virtually and on DirectTV (Pay-per-view) at $39.95 per head. Mike, that’s a lot of cash. Blizzard makes World of Warcraft – from what I know – their fans are super passionate about the game and any advances in it.

(2) Meeting Professionals International – 2000 people onsite and a 24000 person member community. The # of virtual attendees was puny at this event. They charged $20 for access to the opening session and $300 for access to the full virtual event.

These two examples are a comparison of apples and oranges. [Blizzard has millions of tech savy, young customers while MPI does not] But – I think that it illustrates the challenge that event organizers face in deciding to charge or not – and, if yes, how much.

Thanks for starting the discussion! Great stuff!

- Sam Smith
@samueljsmith

I agree, other events such as training sessions and conferences could easily go to a full virtual model and save tons of money. Our goal @ MyBoothSpace.com is to make the instant connection between a physical show and virtual (I hate that word actually) show seamless and less confusing. Our unique approach is to use the event map as the common ground for both…it just makes sense. Back end metrics are also a driving factor for most event organizers we have spoken to…there is just no ONE good way to determine ROI on a physical event like there is for a digital event, that’s where our product shines. MyBoothSpace allows everyone to see exactly how well a show performs all the way around.

Maybe we can have a follow up blog article for an even deeper discussion on the subject. Thanks again!

Wow, Karen, you raise some really interesting questions here!!

I guess my gut reaction is while an organization may have both virtual and live components to an event, it is still one event, not two, it just has expanded delivery channels. It also requires a slightly different skillset from speakers.

Midori Connolly, from Pulse Staging & Events wrote a great article on this subject at her blog. I think the compensation question is more driven by the market, than it is based upon “entitlements” from expanded distribution channels. One could argue the speaker is getting a benefit by increased exposure from the event’s reach.

I would love to hear other opinions from other event professionsals on this subject… it may be a great subject for a follow up blog article.

Thanks for contributing, Karen, to this discussion!

@michaelmccurry

Some excellent points here… depending on what the organizational objectives are for their events.

My question is, for Cisco, is their “really deep content” unique or compelling, because in my mind, if it isn’t I think they will have trouble selling attendees on the concept of paying for it??

Your next point is absolutely solid. An extremely compelling reason for adding a virtual component to an event is its ability to extend the marketing reach of the content.

With a PCMA event we did in September we rolled out a webcast with Twitter feed, and more than doubled our audience with participants across 25 states from NYC to Hawaii… that is pretty convincing eh?

Inevitably, the Hybrid event model is here to stay, in whatever format, and I think the next twelve months will reveal a significantly increased interest from organizations in embracing this concept and deploy it across their events portfolio.

Thanks Cece for the participation in this discussion!

@michaelmccurry

Thanks so much for your comments, they are much appreciated!

I think “never” is an awfully big word. There may be some contexts where virtual events will in fact replace F2F contact. For example an internal training event, where material is being delivered in a lecture format, with little or no interaction required. That type of delivery system could save an organization thousands of dollars, which could be spent on more value rich F2F events.

I absolutely agree with you that attendees will pay for virtual content, in many cases, especially if the content being delivered is widely available, at no charge elsewhere.

Your idea with exhibitors is highly intriguing.. would love to see a blog article expanding the concept??

Thanks again James for your contributions to the discussion!

@michaelmccurry

You raise some good points here Dave.

I think one of the major benefits to a Hybrid event is its ability to build a broader sense of community across an organization’s program. While event organizers should be mindful of the timing of their marketing plan for rolling out all components of the event, I believe fear of it being cannibalized is simply unfounded.

One of the objectives of introducing a virtual component to an event may be to create buzz or interest in the live piece, but it is not the only reason by any means. Membership or customer value, particularly in a tough economy, is one of the major drawing cards.

Virtual components will in most cases never replace the networking value and human touch of a face2face event, but they do allow an organization to reach attendees they otherwise would never touch.

Thanks for your contribution to this discussion!

@michaelmccurry

If a corporation or association is going to run both a F2F and virtual component, should speakers be compensated for the latter as well as their live presentation?

Yes, the virtual component ups the exposure element for the speaker and will hopefully produce revenue because of it. But, at this point in time, the speaker’s presentation is still their intellectual property (with social networking growing, that may get somewhat diluted in time). Since that content is going to be virtually distributed, shouldn’t there be some additional compensation to the speaker?

If speakers begin to ask for compensation on the virtual component, this may necessitate some form of payment structure for all or some of the virtual components as Cece refers to re Cisco.

Looking forward to more thoughts, Karen