In September 2019, I wrote a post to share what Work&Place had learnt about the workplace event industry, based on our experience of being a media partner in 2018/19.  You can read that post here.  At the time, the industry was growing in confidence and creatively evolving the physical event format.
No-one knew about COVID-19.  But that ‘Part 1’ article had a few prescient comments, such as:
“Could conference organisers make more income from selling remote access… over video conferencing?  This is the sort of service that companies like zoom.us aim to make mainstream.  But that would present considerable additional upfront expense for organisers who would – to be effective – need to turn event sessions into television level audio-visual stages.”
With much still uncertain,  this July 2020 post is more of a ‘check in’ on the current evolving situation.
With help from ..
To help me with this post, I interviewed four leading event organisers who have significant on-going commitments in this area and will have to ‘lay bets’ on the future of workplace events.  Acknowledgements and my thanks go to:

Lara Paemen, IFMA
Simon Berger, Make A Difference Events
Maggie Procopi, Workplace Trends Events
Jeremy Wise, Marcus Evans Events

How has COVID19 affected 2020 events and beyond?
Simon Berger comments:
 “Dramatic would be an understatement but we are ‘glass half full’ and whilst the disruption caused is huge and the mitigation involved with clients and venues a headache, we can do so much better with digital and we can reach more people – the events industry is being forced to wake up to digital and find positive ways to run events and eventually ‘include’ more digital options in all events.”
Key challenges presented by a move to ‘digital’ explored here are:

The need for existing teams to learn new technology, processes, and skills.
The search for a new, sustainable Business Model.
Delivering an engaging, valued Attendee Experience….