Just some of the highlights from a busy, incredible year for Cvent
January
We started the year full of optimism as successful vaccine trials looked set to usher-in a speedy return to physical in-person events. To help organisers strategically plan, we encouraged the use of Event Diagramming (formerly Social Tables®) - our online system that allows planners to create safety-minded room layouts, which can then be shared and amended when new requirements occur.
Event Diagramming already allowed planners to position chairs, tables and podiums for social distancing so we added a few new features such as temperature checkers and hand sanitiser points.
Diagramming can be done in both 2D and photo-realistic 3D. The first gives you a bird’s-eye view of the space so you can arrange furniture, space out assigned seating, and place your stage.
The second helps you virtually walk through the venue and look at your plan through the eyes of your attendees without having to visit the space.
April
By April, the UK Government had published its Spring 2021 Roadmap for easing lockdown restrictions across England. The roadmap stated that from 17 May, indoor events could resume, subject to meeting Covid-secure requirements.
Event attendee capacity caps would initially be set at 1,000 people at any one time or 50% of a venue’s capacity, whichever was lower for indoor events.
It was quickly becoming apparent therefore that a blend of in-person and online elements would form the future of event management but there was much confusion over what this would look like.
Here at Cvent, we decided to showcase our bespoke vision of ‘hybrid’ by staging a live streamed seminar, entitled 'The Hybrid Dilemma: when Virtual meets Reality’ at ExCeL London during the second day of International Confex on 23 June.
June
Rising Covid cases saw International Confex postponed until early September, leaving us with a dilemma of our own. Should we transition the seminar to fully virtual, find an alternative venue space or postpone and wait until September?
The consensus was that delegates would only feel confident of attending in-person elements of conferences and education sessions once they’d seen how our industry leaders can guarantee the return of safe, live, accessible and engaging hybrid events.
We also wanted to move the industry back towards a future where venues are more than just studio space, production involves stage as well as broadcast technical know-how, catering doesn’t always have to be delivered via Deliveroo and networking occurs both face-to-face and in the chatroom tab.
So we moved our pilot hybrid event across London to The May Fair screening room.
July
‘The Hybrid Dilemma: when Virtual meets Reality’ saw 500-registered attendees online and 30 guests in the room, experience 90-minutes of informed discussion on the challenges and opportunities for planning and staging hybrid events.
Later in July, we confirmed that the rumours circulating in the media were true - Cvent had agreed a “Business Combination” with a Special Merger Acquisition Company (SPAC) called Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp. II, which would see it return to the public markets.
Cvent’s new investors included Zoom Video Communications Inc, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, Hedosophia and Oaktree Capital Management L.P.
Dragoneer Founder and Managing partner Marc Stad said: “Cvent is led by an exceptional management team with years of industry experience and a strong track record of profitable growth. We believe the $801 million of capital expected to be raised from this transaction will enable management to double-down on product development and further cement Cvent’s position as a leader in this software category.”
August
In August, we launched a new product - Cvent Studio, enabling planners to easily create professional-quality video content and pre-build individual segments of their webinar or broadcast before going live.
With the Director View, planners can quickly mix presenters, media, and screen shares; engage in multi-user and multi-presenter collaboration (with up to 10 presenters at a time); pre-record sessions; edit backgrounds, overlays, and lower thirds; and stream video through the Cvent Attendee Hub.
Via the Presenter View, presenters can be invited via a web link to a separate virtual preparation space, allowing them to chat with the director and other communicators, edit their settings, view the programme, and share their screen in real-time.
September
The Cvent Virtual Attendee Hub was crowned Best Virtual Event Platform at the inaugural Micebook V Awards.
The awards, which took place in the new ballroom at Nobu London Portman Square, recognised the hub’s ‘wide-range of functionality, user-friendly interface and good data and reporting abilities.’
October
Cvent CONNECT Europe 2021 at the Intercontinental London - The O2 was a hybrid blend of the Cvent Virtual Attendee Hub and in-person activity around the hotel’s dedicated conference suite.
To attend day one in-person, delegates needed to provide a negative lateral flow test or evidence of double vaccination, while day two was virtual only with on-demand catch-ups.
On the first day, Cvent’s Vice-President Product Management, McNeel Keenan presented the Event Cloud product roadmap alongside Senior Marketing Manager, Europe, Felicia Asiedu.
Multi-lingual support, more participatory and engagement features, content monetisation tools and the integration of Cvent Studio were just some of the upgrades revealed for the Cvent Attendee Hub over the coming six months.
Keenan told delegates: “Our journey into the virtual events world started with the Virtual Attendee Hub. Since then we’ve invested heavily in the platform and it has become the single largest project in the history of the company.
"We’re now working on bringing together three of our solutions – the Attendee Hub, event app and attendee website – into a single user interface that can provide a single source of truth across your event programme and a consistent branded experience for virtual, hybrid and in-person events.”
November
Felicia and Karen Carter, Director Enterprise Marketing, Europe, discussed the ‘behind-the-scenes’ goings-on of Cvent CONNECT Europe in the first of a two-part webinar.
“With so many online attendees accessing content in 2020, we needed to ensure that we didn’t lose that virtual audience. But we also understood the desire to get back to in-person live events. As a result, we decided on a hybrid first day and a second day that was purely virtual,” Asiedu said.
“Some of the virtual content was live and some of it was recorded on the first day and offered on-demand during day two. By producing additional virtual content using Cvent Studio, we were able to reduce the amount of production effort, which in turn meant we could offer more. It’s content I can also re-use for the rest of the year and into 2022.”
Cvent’s production partner, Encore designed the main CONNECT plenary stage like a TV broadcast, with a camera tracking across the front and a floating screen hung from the ceiling - encouraging presenters to maintain eye-level contact with the virtual viewer while reading their autocue prompts.
“Virtual viewers could ask questions via the hub, while in-room attendees asked questions via the app so none of us on-stage knew where the questions were coming from. That’s important so that you don’t segment your audience into at-home or in-the-room and it connects the overall experience,” Asiedu added.
December
We ended the year celebrating under a shower of blue ticker-tape as Cvent returned to the public markets and began trading on Nasdaq, following the completion of the merger with Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp. II.
Cvent CEO, Reggie Aggarwal said: “Organisations around the world want to get back to meeting – whether virtually, in-person, or both with hybrid – and are leveraging technology more than ever to connect with their attendees. We’ve invested heavily in our virtual and hybrid event solutions so that now, no matter how our 21,000 customers want to bring people together, Cvent can help them deliver more engaging, impactful experiences.”
Onto 2022...
What will the year ahead bring?
With fresh concerns over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, now detected in 50 countries, virtual and hybrid event solutions are certain to dominate.
Meanwhile, incorporating virtual components within in-person meetings and event programmes will be vital to the success of company carbon targets to achieve net zero by the end of the decade.
Through innovation and long-term growth objectives, Cvent is perfectly placed to continue driving both the industry’s digital transformation and its safe sustainable return to live, in-room events with added digital value.
Bring on 2022 and a Happy New Year to all.
