By Michael F. Carmichael
March 31, 2011
You’ve probably been to your share of conferences and trade shows. You have to put them in your probably-already-diminished budget, arrange for tickets and hotel reservations, get on a plane with a bunch of people you’d (ah-choo!) rather not fly with… and, well, you know the rest of the story.
But with the increased hassle of flying – not to mention the hit on your budget – why not think about a virtual conference and trade show? They’re very much like the real thing, complete with vendor booths that are interactive. You can ask questions of the speakers. You can get answers, complete with follow-up and links if appropriate.
Even better, they’re green. A recent virtual conference and trade show for the green building community is estimated to have saved $1.7 million in travel costs and 1.8 million pounds of CO2 emissions from the planes not taken.
Corp! attended the recent www.GreenExpo365.com online conference to experience first-hand what seems to be a growing trend. We then followed up with keynote speaker Sarah Susanka, the creator of the Not So Big House movement, and Scott Donnelly, the event coordinator, to see how things went from their perspective.
| Sarah Susanka photo by Cheryl Muhr |
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Susanka reports that she really enjoyed it. “I had done a similar one about a year-and-a-half ago which was video-taped and conducted on Skype. I was less comfortable with that. With GreenExpo I feel as though I’m in front of an audience, even though I can’t see anybody. I think that knowing that people are there is all it takes. It’s a very cool thing.”
According to Donnelly, more than 300 architects, builders and others were “there” during Susanka’s keynote and there were more than 6,000 unique site visits during the two-day event.
Susanka says “the virtual trade show is a really nice feature. It’s an interesting phenomenon because it’s obviously different from being there in person, but you do feel like you’re there.”
GreenExpo’s Donnelly says that it works for his exhibitors who say that the “leads generated from GreenExpo365 far outnumber those of a traditional trade show.” One exhibitor in particular said that because the online audience is focused and engaged he was able to secure several job site meetings and four architectural meetings just from the March event.
GreenExpo365 started last year and the majority of exhibitors not only returned from last year, according to Donnelly, but “most upgraded their exposure on the site.” While the annual cost for appearing in four live conferences and an additional 20 bi-weekly events over a year can range from $25,000 to $75,000, Donnelly estimates that an exhibitor can save between $50,000-$100,000 compared with the costs for a traditional trade show – which includes designing the show booth, travel, construction and take-down, staffing, fees and other expenses.