It’s been a shocking 10 weeks for the conference industry. As a key partner to many event organizers and someone who hosts events, conferences are something we rely on to stay in business. We feel for you.

As I connect with friends, colleagues, and family members on Zoom or Hangouts now more than ever (isn't it strange how we’ve now defaulted to Facetime vs. a traditional phone call?!), they ask about business and what we’re doing to incorporate virtual, but also about the industry. “How many events are canceled?” or “How many events are still scheduled for this year?“—which prompted me to do some digging.

For an event and PR company, we have SO much data. We sit on a gold mine of information we’ve built from scratch: 16,376 records of conferences happened or scheduled since we opened our doors five years ago.* Since we’re fortunate enough to focus exclusively on events, we scale by working with clients in almost any industry. We currently hold more than 100 industry tags in our database which include: Fintech, TV, Mobile, Blockchain, eCommerce, Data, Entrepreneurship, MarTech, Marketing, SMB, Retail, Product, HealthTech, Venture Capital, Gaming, Wellness, Travel, Technology, AI/ML, Design, and much more. These events span from San Francisco to New York, to Albuquerque to London, to Sydney and yes, online. It’s also worth mentioning these are events of all sizes, from 50 people to multiple thousand.

Certainly a few disclaimers with the info we’ve compiled below: 

These numbers change daily if not hourly, we do not try to claim this includes every event in existence, and yes, the uncertainty about the rest of 2020 remains. As we wait, we’re incredibly busy keeping these numbers and the details that come with them updated as information becomes available, as well as working with podcast and webinar opportunities so clients can continue to build thought leadership right now.

I’d love to hear your comments, additional questions, or data you’d like to see to inform future posts: caitlin@credpr.com.

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Conferences in our database impacted from COVID-19 as of 5/19/2020: 571

• Of those impacted: 

  • 24% went virtual

  • 25% canceled—some debating doing something in 2020 (virtual or live)

  • 51% postponed 

• Of those postponed: expect further adjustments/percentages to change as a result as health & safety measures for events remain unclear:

  • 24% postponed to Summer 2020 (June-August)

  • 54% postponed to Fall 2020 (September-December)

  • 4% postponed to 2021

  • 18% postponed and date TBC

• Of those moved virtual:

  • 73% kept their original date

  • 28% moved to a later date 

# of opportunities we've secured for clients since sheltering in place on 3/9/2020: 147

• How many of those are virtual?: 89%

  • Podcasts: 39%

  • Virtual Events: 35%

  • Webinars: 19%

  • Pre-recorded series: 7%

• 11% scheduled for a future date

Other predictions (which will remain even when live events return):

• The # of virtual events will continue to increase: more conferences will convert to virtual, and more companies will try hosting their own virtual event (less risk involved vs. hosting a live event). Consequently, the value of virtual will rise.

• More brands will get on board with virtual. They’ll discover the ROI and it will be incorporated into marketing budgets to build thought-leadership.

• Virtual events will get more creative with formats, sponsor packages, stages, virtual expo halls, and more (this means virtual event platforms will offer more creative features too).

  • According to our friends at Bizzabo, over 90% of event marketers plan to incorporate virtual events into their strategy.

• More emphasis will be placed on audience engagement and connection at live events when it's safe to do so. Yes, initially we’ll be forced to limit attendee size, but ongoing there will be a greater emphasis on the value of individual connections and networking. This is already a key challenge with virtual.

Huge kudos to Gina King for her assistance in compiling the data for this, CJ MacDonald, and Andy & Joe Bartley for their prompted questions that pushed me to post this, and the entire team for keeping up with the constant changes as a result of COVID-19.

*Number as of May 19, 2020. This includes events that reoccur annually so could technically be counted up to 6 or 7 times (if they’ve produced every year since 2015)