[stupac2]

I've had a similar experience on the business side, BC.  Our business used to depend on live events (we do over 100 per year).  Webinars was considered to be bit of a backwater, but appropriate for certain types of law (no one will go to a live event in which the topic is how to get a divorce, for example).

Was also thinking about the Harvard study which indicated that we'll be social distancing through at least 2022.  So I decided to reinvent our digital event experience to get as close to an in-person event as possible, though I'd been wondering how much society has changed; e.g., will we get any attendees?

Our first augmented webinar was a few weeks back. One of our partners chose an obscure topic, and gave us six days from invite/list creation to the event.  He invited 450 people.  I told him he might get 45 attendees, not to be surprised if he only had 20 attendees and if he was lucky, he might get 60.  We had 180 RSVPs, 162 attended, 159 stayed for the entire webinar.  More than a dozen substantive Q&A at the end.  Similar experience for the next three webinars.  And no one misses the in-person events.

Your experience seems to be confirming my intuition that I would not want to be invested in or work in the conference, hospitality, and travel industry. I can't see air travel, car rentals, hotel bookings, conference bookings, and related enterprises rebounding to their same levels any time in the next 3-5 years, now that people are discovering that a lot of money can be saved and relatively minimal lost, COVID-19 aside.

While there's obviously some value in doing things face-to-face and having serendipitous encounters, my experience has always been that conferences exist mostly as a way to pay for some employee travel to a fun location. Not that I'm complaining, as a conference in Paris saved me a chunk of change on my honeymoon, but it always seemed to me like it falls mostly into the "wasted money" bucket.

There may be an exception for academic conferences (I've seen both sides argued there), but I assume those are a minor player in the game.

[stupac2]

I've had a similar experience on the business side, BC.  Our business used to depend on live events (we do over 100 per year).  Webinars was considered to be bit of a backwater, but appropriate for certain types of law (no one will go to a live event in which the topic is how to get a divorce, for example).

Was also thinking about the Harvard study which indicated that we'll be social distancing through at least 2022.  So I decided to reinvent our digital event experience to get as close to an in-person event as possible, though I'd been wondering how much society has changed; e.g., will we get any attendees?

Our first augmented webinar was a few weeks back. One of our partners chose an obscure topic, and gave us six days from invite/list creation to the event.  He invited 450 people.  I told him he might get 45 attendees, not to be surprised if he only had 20 attendees and if he was lucky, he might get 60.  We had 180 RSVPs, 162 attended, 159 stayed for the entire webinar.  More than a dozen substantive Q&A at the end.  Similar experience for the next three webinars.  And no one misses the in-person events.

Your experience seems to be confirming my intuition that I would not want to be invested in or work in the conference, hospitality, and travel industry. I can't see air travel, car rentals, hotel bookings, conference bookings, and related enterprises rebounding to their same levels any time in the next 3-5 years, now that people are discovering that a lot of money can be saved and relatively minimal lost, COVID-19 aside.

While there's obviously some value in doing things face-to-face and having serendipitous encounters, my experience has always been that conferences exist mostly as a way to pay for some employee travel to a fun location. Not that I'm complaining, as a conference in Paris saved me a chunk of change on my honeymoon, but it always seemed to me like it falls mostly into the "wasted money" bucket.

There may be an exception for academic conferences (I've seen both sides argued there), but I assume those are a minor player in the game.