Worldwide Virtual Event Applications Forecast, 2024-2028

This IDC study predicts growing momentum in the virtual event applications market, which will almost double in revenue by 2028. Treating virtual events as a relic of the pandemic era or just expanded conferencing would be to ignore the unique benefits that continue to grow in this market. More significantly, it would ignore the evolving experience expectations of your customers, partners, and employees. Next to social media and communities, virtual events - which leverage both - creates an annuity of first-party data that helps brands build fans and advocates, while detecting signal changes in prospect's and customer's interest. More importantly, a virtual event is a technology that can be used to create trust to build a relationship upon."Virtual events must create a first-party experience and engage with both in-person and remote visitors to create value and trust," according to Wayne Kurtzman, IDC research vice president of Social, Communities, and Collaboration. "Using a company's expenditure on event attendance as an indicator of purchasing intent is a flawed metric. Behaviors changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Paired with more restrictive company spending, it creates an opportunity for a company to leverage an engaging experience from the stage and within communities to better measure the lifetime customer value and evolving interests of fans, prospects, and customers. This is why IDC expects the virtual events applications market to nearly double during the forecast period."