Many social, scientific and business events are increasingly being hosted online. The range of online platforms, trade fair tools and service providers is just as wide as the range of meetings, conferences and trade fairs in the various sectors.
So how do you find the right solution for your project in the virtual world?
Answering basic questions
First of all, you should be clear about a few basic things that are important for the event in question: How many participants are expected? How many separate rooms or stages are needed? Are video calls and private or group chats required? Which devices will the target group use to participate in the event? Should access be possible via desktop and laptop, or also from mobile devices? Should an app-based platform be used for the digital event? Will the access be via the browser or via an app?
Answering these questions is the first important step in finding the right platform for the online event. The second step is to look at the details and other desired options.
What requirements should my platform meet?
For instance, what about the user interface? Should it be two-dimensional or is 3D or a virtual reality experience preferable? How interactive do you want the event to be? Should polls be conducted or should discussion rounds be facilitated by a random generator? Or do you want a hybrid solution to connect an on-site event with the community on the internet? It is certainly helpful to define in advance which indispensable criteria the platform should fulfil in a specific case and what else would be desirable, so as not to be overwhelmed by the huge range of offers in the online sector.
In addition, you should consider whether you want to take care of the set-up and further organisation yourself, or whether you would prefer to have a service provider take care of everything. Depending on the project and the virtual trade fair tool used, rooms, stages, virtual trade fair stands have to be designed and integrated and often external streaming service providers such as Zoom or similar providers have to be integrated to enable video chats.
Provider comparison for online trade fair platforms
The comparison website online-messe.org offers a good guide to the world of online tool providers as well as service agencies with their accompanying services. In addition to the detailed presentations of various digital tools from all over the world, the offers can be filtered according to the criteria mentioned above.