Several trends are transforming the B2B business, and companies must innovate to position themselves and to maintain their customer satisfaction, using technological advances. Gamification, for example, makes relationships more dynamic and encourages networking. And this technology allows you to organize online events where participants interact in the most similar way to the possible reality: Virtual 3D Worlds technology, applied to the business world.

Thanks to its interactive 3D technology from the world of simulations, each person controls an avatar that allows them to move freely, talk with other users using their microphone and even participate in fun interactions turning the encounter into a simple, friendly and really efficient experience. It is what we could call the ‘virtual transformation’.

This new style of events is designed to complement the face-to-face sessions, becoming an important help when it comes to increasing the impact among the public and improving engagement. In this way, it is possible to extend a physical event to the online world in order to reach a greater number of attendees.

3D interactive virtual events help reducing exhibition costs, eliminating travel and geographical barriers

Main benefits of interactive 3D virtual events

Thanks to this technology, business people, employees and customers can meet in a virtual space allowing an almost real interaction between them. It is undeniable that the integration of virtual events in a company’s business plan offers numerous advantages. And here are some of the most important ones:

• Significant cost savings as well as an income source. These virtual events represent an enormous cost saving both for the organizer and for the participants, not only because of travel and overnight stay expenses, but also because of the cost of building a stand and the people taking care of it. As the organizational expenses decrease, your profit margin increases.
• Increase of the geographical area and the number of visitors. Events can be launched globally at an unprecedented speed and reach an international audience. Given their low cost, these actions can even be carried out several times a year, to try and maintain the loyalty of a specific public as well as strengthen the organic growth.
• Efficiency: networking and proximity to brands. These events are more than just videos or online conferences. They are a networking platform, where attendees can interact with each other and with brand managers to create relationships and alliances as efficiently as in a in-person event.
• Accurate big data. An essential factor after an event is the ability to analyze the gathered data with the greatest precision. Apart from the attendance registers, the important thing is to know our audience, and here the metrics and participation are fully controlled: this virtual technology is an ally for the companies, offering them the most accurate data possible about their audience.
• Carbon footprint reduction. The infrastructure savings not only affect the organizer’s pocket, but also generate a more than positive impact on society and the environment. Bringing together so many people from different places in the same space, in addition to the effort it involves, produces a large carbon footprint, raising pollution. In Spain alone, the average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of vehicles increased in 2018 by 1.82% according to MSI data.

Thus, the virtualization of events and congresses eliminates the environmental impact and is a new way for companies to contribute a little to the battle for the preservation of the environment.

Increasingly, companies have become more aware of the problems that the society faces regarding pollution of the environment. And eliminating the carbon footprint of their events, through their virtualization, has benefits for everyone.

Using this type of technology can provide a clear competitive advantage, since the real added value is provided by the event organizer thanks to his knowhow and experience. The technology enhances the organizers’ creativity by allowing them to go beyond the limits of the real world, which can be a real advantage for achieving the goals the customer who hires the event wants to accomplish.

Success Story: ‘I International Talent Forum’

3D virtual trade-shows represent a totally accessible and easy to manage solution: its operation is the closest thing to a face-to-face exhibition. The participating companies have a stand that is personalized with their corporate brand. And in it, its commercial or marketing staff can tend to visitors the moment they require it, promoting brand products and/or services. They are also able to organize talks or lectures for hundreds of people, as well as networking sessions, product showrooms, etc.

In the same way that it happens in a face-to-face trade-show, the visitors can access the different pavilions, visit their stands and speak with their own voice through avatars with the rest of the attendees or sponsors.

Virtway Events, a pioneering Virtway product in the creation of interactive 3D virtual platforms for events, has an extensive experience in the 3D virtual world. Its first online fair, the International Talent Forum 2018, showed all the advantages and possibilities offered by an event of this type.

From May 7th to 10th, 2018, Virtway Events organized the first edition of the International Talent Forum; a 3D virtual fair where the attendees could go without actually leaving home. They just needed an Internet connection and a link to the Virtway Events platform. This event was aimed at Spanish-speaking people interested in job search, entrepreneurs and those who were eager to learn. There were accelerators and incubators such as Wayra, Ances, Everis and Accenture. They presented a selection of start-ups, and gave the entrepreneurs the opportunity to show their projects looking for financing.

This innovative forum had 3,960 visitors, 54% of which came from Spain and the rest from Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico, and they stayed connected an average of 43 minutes. The 3D fair had more than 44 stands distributed in two areas. The program had a great variety and was very complete throughout the 4 days, with a total of 53 lectures distributed among the audience, the networking spaces and the workshop rooms.

The International Talent Forum 2018 has demonstrated the success this type of event can have: virtual fairs allow the experience to be more pleasant and relevant, and also help organizers and visitors achieve their objectives, creating a more satisfying engagement.

Virtualizing events reduces the carbon footprint, and has a greater profitability and comfort for organizers

Other possibilities

As is the case for many technological evolutions, the technology for virtual events can be applied to a series of other scenarios in a quite fitting way. These are some of the opportunities that open up with it:

• Speed Networking Sessions. The tremendous evolution of virtual worlds to connect and facilitate interaction allows to take Speed Networking to a whole new level: Online Speed Networking or Virtual Speed Networking, which is a remote format that allows you to enjoy the advantages of speed dating for businessmen without having to leave the office. It allows to expand the target audience and reduce travel and logistics costs without detracting from the experience itself. The Virtway interactive 3D space allows the creation of a “dating” area for different companies, distributing the space in an intuitive way, similar to a real event, and with the advantage of giving more prominence to the brands. With its cutting-edge technology (Voice over IP, 3D Audio, Multimedia content …) it allows a whole range of formats and ensures smooth communications, without delays or cuts.
• Beyond webinars. The use of 3D audio to position sounds anywhere in the event, the ability to project your presentations and a live voice transmission are some of the features that will make the experience truly unique to your audience. In addition, you will have the ability to access a complete set of metrics that will allow you to draw conclusions based on user behavior.
• Team Building  Activities. One of the most innovative ideas for this online platform is to use interactive 3D avatars, which simulate each of the remote workers and also those responsible for the activities aimed at training these teams. Virtway Events has developed a very advanced technology to offer stimulating experiences to remote workers in a virtual world. Thus, they can attend numerous group activities related to virtual training, from games and Escape Rooms to conferences or meetings.
• Employee Training. We have a specific scenario for employee training. This allows companies as well as employees to access a quality training without having to travel to a specific site, which saves a lot of time and money (since there is no room to rent, no travel expenses nor time lost for travelling). All kinds of activities where the participants have a guide can be created, and they have to follow the guidelines while the activity is in progress. Once this activity ends, the trainer has a large number of metrics at his/her disposal, in which he/she can see who has answered all the questions correctly, how long it took to do it, with whom the person has spoken, if the person has visited all the required scenarios, and lots of additional data.

The technology for virtual 3D events applied to the world of virtual networking offers enormous potential

The way to go

Virtual Events aren’t entirely here to replace face-to-face events, at least not for now. But they serve as an enormous complement to them. Their advantages are clear, and they open up a whole new range of marketing and promotion possibilities, with the delivery of new media types and completely personalized experiences. This is something that was impossible in the past with existing online technology. And in the end, this may be the convincing argument for many to make the adjustments for Virtual Events.