Skift Meetings Studio Team

What does a hybrid future mean when it comes to event apps? What features should you look out for, and who is providing them?

A number of spanners have been thrown in the works for the recovery of the event industry in 2021. Vaccine rollouts have been slower than expected and new variants of the coronavirus may challenge our existing strategies for getting back to normal.

News of vaccines on the horizon is starting to cut through the shroud of uncertainty surrounding the future of the industry. Nevertheless, 2020 has changed events for good.

It has been an incredibly difficult year for event planners, and with 2020 nearly coming to an end, it’s more important than ever to keep abreast of what is happening and where things are going.

A complex and evolving landscape of virtual event tech has left event professionals with a lot of questions. 

As events begin to reemerge across the world, what will this next stage of the industry’s recovery look like? How can the lessons we’re learning in virtual engagement be leveraged to enhance in-person experiences, and secure a positive ROI for them? 

The industry is at a turning point. The sense of solidarity and unity that begat inspiring stories of our community rallying to support the fight against the coronavirus has given way to a sense of uncertainty and distress. We need a plan, and The Future of the Event Industry is the first step.

Covid-19 has changed the event tech landscape forever. Until 2020, a trend of event tech mergers and acquisitions saw the rise of monolithic one-stop shops and the event tech industry became harder and harder to penetrate. Now, virtual events have created a new vertical, and the horizon is filled with new players.