Trends in Corporate Retreats After a Pandemic

2020 will be a unique year for everybody, both professionally and personally, and definitely in terms of corporate events and parties. The Coronavirus crisis will undoubtedly influence event management trends. However, there are several key new corporate event planning directions that all corporate event strategists should be aware of.

Virtual Events

In-person activities provided many opportunities to network, form important contacts, and meet with participants and sponsors before the epidemic. When things got virtual, a new and distinct audience arose: individuals could suddenly attend these events that were previously out of reach. They may enter into a virtual world they had never had before at the push of a button. Virtual events not only assisted in achieving the same objectives as corporate retreat locations for companies or as in-person events, but they also provided the extra benefit of interacting with a larger audience while eliminating traveling and venue expenditures.

Event Technology Has Evolved

The event industry’s rapid development would not have been possible without the use of event technology. Marketing executives and planners adopted and used a new mentality and skillset virtually overnight to keep things moving, committing quickly to digitalization. It is no surprise that when respondents were asked if they wanted to use technology to promote virtual meetings, the majority said yes. Virtual conferencing, online booking, post-event attendance surveys, live polling, lead tracking, and event mobile apps were all popular uses of event technology. In the new world of events, technology is unquestionably essential. Attendees and planners are increasingly embracing features like live polling, interactive Q&A via event apps, and appointment booking systems. In addition to being effective tools, these technologies offer the added benefit of increasing active involvement and interaction. Surveys, live feedback, and integrated lead tracking are all important post-event tools that allow companies to track the ROI of their virtual events.

Hybrid Events

Hybrid events include the greatest aspects of hosting live and virtual meetings, and they are open to everyone, regardless of the constraints. While some locations have opened up to public meetings, others may still be closed to internal and international travel. Hybrid events enable multi-venue activities, allowing for numerous in-person audiences in situations when travel is banned. Attendees can attend these events virtually, in-person from several places, or both with a hybrid event approach. Because a hybrid event is designed to connect several audiences to one event, the ratio of one audience to the other does not matter. Companies have embraced a hybrid workforce, allowing team members to work remotely rather than in a single location. While this structure may guide future virtual and pod-sized corporate events, it has also enabled corporate organizers to focus on the finer points of each meeting, event, or trip they arrange. “Welcome packages” for digital ceremonies that aim to deliver a similar experience to going to a wedding have played a similar role in the business setting as they do in the wedding sector, and organizers have taken notice with services at scale.

In sum, planners may now improve virtual experiences for team-building activities, board and shareholder meetings, and product launch events. To handle all the moving parts, increased attention to detail uses software applications to manage and monitor workflow and record daily and weekly lists of activities and budgets.