Four Paths Into the Future of Virtual Events
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As brands continue to go deeper into digital-first event strategies, explore emerging hybrid architectures, and embrace brand communities, the trails blazed in 2020 are opening new ways forward into 2022.

![](https://assets.brentturner.is/_fitWide1600/8285/four-paths-forward-virtual-events.webp)

While the planning of in-person events is roaring back, many brands are expanding their investments in bringing communities together with live digital experiences.

As demand continues to expand, so does the landscape of event-centric platforms, tools, and technologies. Across [a database of 356 (and growing) solutions](https://airtable.com/shrU2pZxfCcIr4J4q/tblKr176X3lbynpTj?backgroundColor=red&viewControls=on), including our own Digital Studios team assessment of [over 145 unique providers](https://www.opusagency.com/2020/11/how-choose-digital-event-platform/), the leaders are changing places, the copycats keep popping up, and the innovations are coming together.

Across our portfolio of deep client partnerships—including 13 of the [Top 20 Global Brands](https://www.interbrand.com/best-global-brands/) and a collection of fast-growing category creators—the rapid changes in this landscape overlap with the evolving strategies behind our next-generation digital experiences. One big question has emerged: **what is the future of virtual event platforms and the experiences we can create with them?**

1.  **Virtual-only Platforms Grow, the Add-ons Expand**  
    The legacy and leading platforms will expand their offerings with improved baselines (i.e., truly intelligent networking tools) and in-demand extras (i.e., virtual viewing parties). These platforms will continue to develop their own plug-ins, and, soon we expect, they will open add-on “app store-like” offerings that will enable entirely new ecosystems of third-party apps to be natively integrated into the overall experience (i.e., [Topia](https://topia.io/), [Hio](https://hiosocial.com/hovr.html)).  
    
2.  **Brands Build Platforms, Then Extend with Add-ons  
    **Virtual platforms’ core elements are straightforward: their architectures embrace the same open-source technologies powering websites across the web today. For brands with solid martech cultures and long-term visions for differentiation, we expect to see a rise of custom-built platforms that will further align event, digital, and content teams. Bonus big question we’ve been asking: There are open-source content management systems and e‑commerce platforms, but where are the open-source virtual event platforms? We expect an open-source virtual events platform to emerge soon.  
    
3.  **Hybrid-first Platforms Will Shine Brightest  
    **As events continue to race back, brands will not want to run (nor can afford to run) multiple technology platforms to support their in-person and online experiences. From the legacy players to the emerging darlings, the race to in-person event technology is on. Meanwhile, the “old” Event App companies are about to get much more interesting again. We expect providers like [MeetingPlay](https://www.meetingplay.com/), [Swapcard](https://www.swapcard.com/), and [Eventfinity](https://www.eventfinity.co/), to leverage their intrinsic knowledge and relationships from the world of in-person events to quickly be innovation leaders in the hybrid arena.  
    
4.  **Community Platforms Catch Up  
    **In marketing, a megatrend of 2020 was Communities—from the (re)(re)(re)[rise of brand communities](https://www.inc.com/michelle-manafy/brand-communities-are-answer-to-engaging-a-new-generation-of-consumers.html) to the growing popularity of [paid communities](https://trends.vc/trends-0014-paid-communities/). This trend is coming into the event space, with recent leading event industry trade publications exploring “[365 engagement](https://www.eventmanagerblog.com/365-virtual-event-engagement)”, full books on an [“always-on” future of events](https://reinventinglive.com/), and influential thought leadership pieces projecting the [merging of communities and events](https://ianvanagas.com/2021/03/03/why-executives-should-care-about-internet-communities/). As marketers continue to tango with events and communities, so will a new generation of technology solutions. For now, the current leader, [Bevy](https://bevy.com/), is the one to watch.

At The Next Intersection
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Infused with an expanding trove of data and a maturing playbook for bringing people together with live experiences — online, in-person, and everywhere in between — it is these four paths forward that will drive the experimentation into what’s next.

Taking a broader perspective, it is where these paths intersect that will take all of us into an unimagined next.

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A version of this post was originally published on opusagency.com.

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