The New Way to Buy Virtual and Hybrid Event Technology

A few years back a good friend of mine made a comment that stuck with me, something along the lines of “Where there is chaos, there is money to be made.” Granted, we were having fun with the idea of creating the perfect distraction for stealing a piece of artwork from a heavily-guarded museum, but the point is universally applicable. And nowhere was this statement more true than in the virtual event technology space during calendar year 2020.

As we are all painfully aware last year was—for the most part—uncontrolled madness for enterprises when it came to maintaining business continuity. I’m not going to drag everyone through yet another extended 2020 recap, because we all know what happened. But suffice it to say work at home mandates, travel restrictions and last-minute event virtualizations not only opened up some previously tight budgets, but compressed video technology buying timelines from months into weeks or in some cases even days. And important things were missed, because this is always what happens when humans aren’t given adequate time to collect and process information.

We’ve all heard the virtual event horror stories, and many of you lived them first-hand. Some used a popular video conferencing application and were bombed by Internet trolls. Others brought a ‘workplace’ version of a social media app into their organization and put data privacy at risk. Many tried to run a live event using a popular B2C video app—only to have it completely melt down because the platform was never built to handle anything more than a small family reunion. And the rest cancelled their events altogether, making the decision that running a terribly-executed virtual event was worse than not running one at all.

The point is in 2020 buyers of virtual event technology lined up to pay for all kinds of half-baked, ill-fitting and mostly unproven virtual event solutions, because it was the only option they had. But the good news is this year will be different. As all of these one year contracts organizations signed come up for renewal in 2021, virtual event technology buyers are taking a more measured approach to evaluating needs. And most of them have already found there are more scalable, secure and reliable solutions out there—some of which are easy to use and come with a ton of valuable features.

For example, did you know that organizations can run new product rollouts and customer events with the same platform that just won two Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards? Are you aware the platform that delivered the first fully virtual South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Festival can also flawlessly execute your company’s next internal educational conference or external user summit? Brightcove customers knew this, and over the course of 2020 maintained business continuity by running thousands of virtual events on our award-winning video platform.

I’d like to end this article by encouraging you all to take a look at a product called Brightcove Virtual Events for Business and compare it to what you used in 2020. In fact, if you’ve already moved on from your 2020 platform to something you believe is better, take a minute and compare Brightcove Virtual Events for Business to what you’re using now. Alternatively, if you’d like to speak with an expert or talk more about your virtual event use cases, please fill out this form on our website and someone will get back to you shortly. Look for my next article soon, and thank you for giving me five minutes of your day!

Eric Rudolf is the VP of Go-to-Market (GTM) Programs for Brightcove, the industry leader in empowering organizations to touch audiences with video in bold and innovative ways. With over 20 years in SaaS-based Enterprise Technology, Eric has led GTM strategy for multiple Gartner-named leaders in the video technology space. You may connect with Eric on LinkedIn, or send him an email any time at erudolf@brightcove.com.