Event Marketing Partners (EMP) is creating 10 new virtual events for three leading tech companies with the events scheduled for September through November and plans to document its experiences throughout the process. EMP blog posts will share insight into the virtual event creation experiences from the perspectives of its clients (event hosts) and attendees.

EMP Managing Partner Gordon Stake explains, “Documenting our experiences will serve as a way to expand upon and update, ‘3 Simple Steps to Creating a Tremendous Virtual Event – Where to Start and How to Ensure Success,’ which he is presenting during next week’s CEMA Digital Experience Summit 2020.”

In his CEMA session, Gordon will focus on important factors for identifying and selecting a virtual event platform best suited to achieve your business goals. By having the EMP team blog its journey managing multiple events and utilizing multiple platforms, Gordon hopes to go beyond the statistics and selection criteria to help keep a pulse on both the event industry, as impacted by the COVID pandemic, and continue to share best practices.

As the Northstar Meetings Group’s latest Pulse Survey (July 15) found, nearly 80% of those polled expect an increased need for virtual event platforms. This is especially significant with 56% looking at the first half of 2021 as the earliest start of rescheduled live meetings.

As EMP and the rest of the event industry hold virtual events, it’s important to keep in mind some issues identified by Markletic, which posted its findings on May 22, including:

• 38% of marketers say they run into technical problems when hosting virtual events
• The average no-show percentage of virtual events is 35%
• The biggest annoyance of virtual events is a bad connection. The second-largest frustration comes from bad microphones

The EMP team is excited to provide the industry with its updates, insights, learnings, and findings from the upcoming virtual events it will be managing. Gordon points out, “As always, it’s important to remember we’re all in this together. We hope the blog serves as a tool for members of the event community to share their own experiences and best practices. Virtual or live, we all want to create the best experiences for clients, attendees, and sponsors.”