What happens to online events: some of our statistics

The world is rapidly going online. Although the main focus of our Boiling Points is face-to-face events across the country, we can work with online formats. Now, with the cancellation of offline events, the number of events in the Network is growing rapidly. The organizers are no longer afraid of this format, and the total online mass includes not only lectures and seminars (webinars), but also conferences, round tables and even concerts with live music.

In general, when it seems that the whole world is crumbling, there are segments where everything is exactly the opposite. Under the cut - a drop of our statistics on how it grows online.

In February and March of this year alone, 4.5 times more online events were registered on our platform than in the same period last year (261 against 56). And obviously, we see only part of these statistics, since the main value of our platform was the management of offline sites. Those. in reality, growth may be even higher across the market. And at times.

By city

The largest number of online events has grown in Moscow - almost 7 times (from 14 to 89). The capital used to bypass other regions in terms of the popularity of the remote format - no one has canceled the Moscow traffic jams known throughout the country. And this year about a third of all online events that were registered through our platform took place here (we determine the city by the location of the organizer). It is possible that a serious influence on these statistics was exerted by the ban on mass events in premises, introduced earlier than other cities - back in mid-March. Later, it was also forbidden to gather in large groups on the streets, which only fueled activity on the Web.

In addition to Moscow, Rostov and Ulyanovsk regions distinguished themselves, where they already managed to hold 18 and 16 online events, respectively. It should be noted that for the Rostov region it was a successful debut - last year there was not a single online meeting.

St. Petersburg shared the fourth position with the Samara region. In both regions, during February and March, 15 events were held, and in Samara, as in the Rostov region, before that the online format was not popular at all. Activity in St. Petersburg last year was relatively high, but this year the development of the online format is not going so fast - the number of events has remained at about the same level (19).

A few words about formats

Remember, we had a post with event statistics for our Boiling Points? The most popular of them are seminars, meetings, lectures, conferences, round tables, etc. already densely settled in a network. Almost every day in our " Calendar " you can find an event of each of the formats, which takes place either live with the broadcast, or completely online. But experimental formats like apartment blocks are still rare. Perhaps this is due to the conservatism of the boiling points themselves, which promoted them. And direct transfer is not always possible. Everything is clear with the seminars, they can be adapted, but it’s not so easy to convey the atmosphere of a film screening or the same apartment through the screen.

Organizers experiment not only with formats, but also with tools, which in turn determine approaches. Someone uses Zoom for collective communication, someone uses Hangouts with simultaneous broadcasting on YouTube and the ability to ask questions in the comments, and someone pre-records the lecture, so that participants in the event watch it at a convenient time, but cannot participate in the discussion . Probably in a couple of months we will have interesting conclusions about which online format is best for transferring experience, which for developing ready-made solutions, and which for entertainment.

Instead of the results, we note that right now we are witnessing rapid and very interesting transformations of the entire business events market. For example, the same guys familiar from Habr from Jug ruare already working on their solutions that will help to conduct online conferences in several streams with the possibility of interactive participation in them. So for online, the whole story is just beginning. And we will share the next batch of statistics as soon as new periods are closed.