First of all, I hope everyone is safe and staying as sane as possible considering everything else going on in the world today. I know the staff here at SDxCentral have spent the past 7-plus months constantly adjusting to all of the changes both inside and outside of the work environment, for the most part successfully.

For us internally, one of the biggest changes has been attempting to cover the tech world’s newest hot trend: virtual events. These have obviously been a necessary reaction to the physical constraints tied to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There have also been quite a number of them over the past several months.

Just looking at our current and upcoming coverage plans, there are between three and six events on our collective SDxCentral calendars every week. That number seems like a lot, and in trying to cover each of those events it feels like a lot.

There might have been this many events in pre-COVID times, but either I was really good at ignoring the ones that I was not directly planning to attend, or age in general is catching up with me. Or maybe there just weren’t this many events.

All I know is that in looking at our shared calendar, we are quickly nearing peak virtual events.

The move to a virtual event is obviously not a decision to be taken lightly. SAP, for instance, noted earlier this year that it had to take a $39 million charge during the first quarter tied to changing its own annual event to a virtual event and other customer event changes.

And I am guessing a bigger chunk of change was lost by the GSMA when it was forced to scrub its flagship MWC Barcelona event with just a couple of weeks’ notice back in February. That event typically draws more than 100,000 people and seemingly every tech company and phone-case maker in existence.

Then there are the more challenging adjustments like Cisco made for its annual Live event. The tech giant made a smart call to push that event by a couple of weeks following George Floyd’s murder while in police custody and the massive civil unrest that erupted in cities across the United States. It also did a great job of acknowledging those outside influences and their greater importance to society.

One obvious positive is that these events can now reach a much broader audience. This includes the much-needed expansion of the software space into underserved demographics that may have not felt as welcome attending a live event.

For the most part these events have done a decent job. It’s been great to see attempts to craft content and sessions that target women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community.

Christophe Bertrand, senior analyst at ESG-Global, noted on one such virtual event that it “'democratized’ the event, making it available to 20 times more people than the physical event could. So out of a ‘bad’ thing, a good thing happened.”

These events have also done a great job in filling a need that we cannot today satiate with actual travel. And they are still a basic way for communities to connect and stay informed.

IDC noted in a report that nearly half of all attendees at virtual events engage with social media, compared to just 16% at in-person events. That same report found that while just over half of the events lost audience in the transition, 46% gained attendees as a result of the move to a virtual event.

“Removing travel requirements and audience familiarity with video presentations worked together to keep event attendance largely intact,” the report stated.

That’s not to say that there is no room for improvement. IDC noted that event organizers and attendees both identified “engagements during the event as one of the top areas for improvement along with audio quality (organizers) and the need for closed captions (attendees) on the technical side.”

"Looking ahead, virtual events are people’s new 'real world' events," explained Wayne Kurtzman, research director for social and collaboration, at IDC. "To succeed, make sure attendees have easy ways to engage with each other, the organizers, and speakers. Use platforms that were meant for the purpose and prepare the platform, your social team, and support teams. Finally, make the impression a good one with video, lighting, and audio – and usable, authentic content."

And as a member of the media, we would also like to suggest that event organizers make clear their news intentions for the shows. I know the press should not be viewed as the primary target for the content streaming from these events, but we do play a role in the dissemination of information to the public.

As for my own selfish view on the actual execution of these event, there have obviously been some glitches here and there. But that’s to have been expected in light of how dramatic of a shift it is to run a virtual event for tens of thousands of virtual attendees. The biggest challenge, of course, is in having to rely on the tens of thousands of internet connections needed to both produce and consume these events. One bad connection and the whole thing comes crashing down.

Live events in the past have at times included a streaming component, but those were mostly just a camera or two positioned to capture whatever was happening far away on stage. Now, we have those same speakers coming at us in full frame. And, best of all, we get a small glimpse into how some of these folks live.

And that is really the biggest benefit of virtual events. I know I can’t be the only person that will occasionally “drift” during a presentation or keynote to check out a speaker's background scenery.

It did seem that early on people were going with virtual backgrounds that superimposed some sort of Star Wars-themed image to cover up a pile of dirty clothes in the corner. But thankfully it seems that trend has gone away as those virtual backgrounds did not often track very well, and we can call agree that it’s just better to look at a pile of dirty clothes.

Most often we are now treated to someone’s bookshelf dutifully dressed in very thick books, family pictures, and trinkets. These are sort of fun in that they give my “drifting” eye a bit of a workout.

However, I find myself drawn more to the monotone-colored room that typically sends my mind racing. Is this person in a room in their house with absolutely nothing in it? Was that done on purpose? Do they know they have nothing behind them? Are they doing this just to mess with me? Is this a cry for help? So many questions.

And it looks like I will have a lot more questions like this going forward. Most event organizers are maintaining the virtual format for the foreseeable future. We suspect this will last until at least through the first quarter of next year when some regions might have the health precautions in place to support some sort of live event. But more likely this model will continue into the second half of next year.

I just hope that the speakers at these events keep pushing the limits in terms of their home decorations. It’s only a matter of time before we hit that peak with the right combination of quality and quantity.