Over at asi our first foray into the world of online conferences seemed to go OK. From 2-6 November we hosted the asi Virtual Conference. Two hours each day ( well actually two and a half hours as we overran to exactly the same degree each day) and each on a particular theme – specifically: radio, VOD, attention, the pandemic and cross-media measurement.  A lot of the content is now up on the asi Vimeo site for you to enjoy.  

Our overall feelings are that running a virtual event is every bit as stressful as running a real world event, but without the upsides of meeting up with friends and colleagues. You press the ‘End meeting’ button at the end of each day and the event disappears into cyberspace and there you are sat on your own at a desk.  Zoom worked really well as a platform, allowing more interaction than most events, with delegates appearing on screen to ask their question. This interactivity was worth the occasional balls up. I plan to write an article about the whole experience soon.

It was certainly worth doing though. We reached 725 people in total across the five days from 49 countries, with around 300-350 for each session. Feedback was positive, including this review from Bob Wooten which contrasted our event favourably with other recent online events.

Let us hope that a real world event is possible next year, both in terms of safety issues but, importantly, companies having enough money post pandemic to send delegates.