In this down economy with reduced corporate training and travel budgets, I am seeing a lot more online or "virtual" trade shows.
I attended the McKnight's Online Expo yesterday and today and I wasn't impressed. It wasn't McKnight's fault - in fact they did a great job running the event and I was impressed with the virtual website platform they used. But there were only about 15 exhibitors and just a few sessions (5 or 6). Really small. So if online events are growing in popularity due to the economy I'm not seeing it. Conversely, I attended two onsite events last week in Las Vegas and they were fabulous. So in this blogger's opinion, even with their additional expenses, I believe there are advantages that onsite events provide that cannot be matched by online events.
When it comes to virtual events, the lure for event organizers is less risk/up-front costs (no need to buy blocks of hotel rooms) and the possibility for a higher margin event - assuming enough vendors ante up for exhibits and sponsorships.
The attraction for vendors? Less expenses (no travel, shipping, meals, hotel room, etc.) and the possibility of more targeted leads (the biggest advantage of a virtual trade show is that you can track what people at the do).
But when exhibiting at onsite events we can often initiate conversations that would not have happened online. Online you rely 100% on the attendee to visit your virtual booth whereas onsite you have some control. We can also walk the exhibit isles, collect competitive information and observe how buyers interact with other exhibitor's products/services.
As an "attendee" online events don't allow me to interact with my peers the same way I can onsite (I often learn more from other attendees that I do from presentations at events). And if I do want to talk with exhibitors onsite events are superior - I can view a quick product demo, get to know the company, their culture, etc. I know you can do this online but it's not the same.
The one advantage that online events have over onsite events is the ability to attend more sessions because they are recorded - and I can quickly jump around to find the better sessions. If onsite events want to improve their product they should allow paid attendees to listen to podcasts and/or webcasts of the sessions they were unable to attend when they get home.
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