In the digital age, far more things are going online than ever before. Since the dawn of the 2010s, Facebook introduced its now iconic “events” section, where any person could create, host, and invite friends to all types of events.
Today, that concept has reached a new peak with streaming platforms and all sorts of events held solely online, or half online and half offline. Sure, organizing an event might be more difficult thanks to the pandemic (the event planning industry lost revenue and growth), however, conferences, workshops, presentations, and many other events are still taking place either at a smaller scale or completely online. The industry has managed to turn a crisis into something that can still turn a profit. Because of this, it’s worth begging the question, “what is the future of events?”
How Social Media Influenced Events
To get an idea of what the future might look like, it’s important to know at least a bit about recent history.
In the early part of the 2000s, RSS feeds and websites were the main way people could use the internet to find out about events. Once Facebook hit the scene, people had the power of creating their own events and inviting their entire friends list.
While the Live feature wasn’t there yet, people started noticing the potential of the platform. Bars, clubs, restaurants, and all sorts of businesses would start creating events even for fairly insignificant happenings at their locations. They would even organize contests that involved users inviting even more users and sharing the event on their profile in the hopes of reaching even more people without going over their advertising budget. And now, people and brands can seamlessly live stream from anywhere, anytime they want.
The Current Event Scene
Since the recent pandemic, we have seen an emergence of what people call hybrid events. To keep social distancing guidelines intact, organizers often plan events with a restricted number of participants but let other people join in from their computer or smartphone.
Some cool events have started popping up all over offering potential attendees the chance to take part in the action without having to travel to other countries. It’s basically the next step of globalization.
While this approach doesn’t really work for music festivals where the feeling of being there is what matters most, it works wonders for conferences and workshops. Companies have started investing in building or branding their own events apps through which they can let users see recording of past events, schedule which speakers they want to see live, etc.
What Does the Future Hold?
Remember when you would see advertisements for huge events solely on television? Those days are long gone.
In fact, we might start seeing events getting promoted solely on social media and within a brand’s proprietary app. This is extremely important because it allows people to promote their events without making huge investments in advertising.
The most likely scenario is that events will have a more significant online presence than even before as we move forward.
