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Charging for your event

  • 1.  Charging for your event

    Posted 09-02-2020 11:38
    As we are all changing and going virtual with our events, has anyone had success in charging for their virtual event.  We pivoted and had open enrollment for our large user conference, but now we are investigating any success on those charging for an event and what hurdles, tax implications did you go thru?
    #EventApp-Building/managing
    #Creating/ManagingEvents
    #Miscellaneous

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    Karen Owen

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  • 2.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-08-2020 13:50
    I have not, yet, charged for a virtual event, but will be doing so shortly. We have charged for live events, though.

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    Jennifer Cardillo
    Marcom Director RES Americas
    Sulzer Rotating Equipment Services
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  • 3.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-14-2020 08:50

     

    Have you figured out how you are going to do this, gated, pricing, the full event or just sessions?

     

    Just interested on how you are coming to some of your decisions on charging for the virtual piece

     

    ~Karen

     

    Karen Owen

    SAS US Marketing and Shared Services

    Tel: + 1 919 531 7370 karen.owen@sas.com

    Worldwide Headquarters Cary, NC

     

    SAS and Microsoft

     






  • 4.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-08-2020 16:32
    Hi Karen, 

    We just opened our registration two weeks ago for our Annual Conference which will be virtual for the first time in it's 81 year existence! Very nervous on how our final numbers will end up looking but as of today we are very much inline with our usual conference numbers. 

    Last year after being open for two weeks, we were at 215 people registered. This year at 2 weeks in we are at 198. A few key things to note:
    - Last year our conference was in a less than desirable location so our overall numbers were down compared to years previous.
    - Our tours are always a HUGE item on our agenda and space on them is limited so many die-hard architect fans will sign up hour one just to get a spot on their favorite tour - This year being virtual, we don't have limited capacity so that urgency to sign up day one is not there.
    - We have lowered our registration price, but not by much! Last year an Architect Member could sign up for $275 during Early Bird and this year it's $200. 
    - This year we added an EPIC Package which gives attendees full access to the 3-day event and then access to watch al our content on demand for an additional 30 days. 

    Feel free to check out our event here to see pricing/packages etc. http://conference.texasarchitects.org

    Our event is not until the end of next month so it's hard to say how many more will sign up before then - Our price increases September 15 so we will hopefully see a big push in the next week. 

    Good luck with your events!


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    Sharna Pascolo
    Program Director
    Texas Society of Architects
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  • 5.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-15-2020 12:13
    Sharna, 

    Did you use the speaker widget on your home page?  I would love to know how to make the profile images of our speakers larger.  

    Kim

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    Kim Abbott
    North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation
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  • 6.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-15-2020 12:34
    Hi KIm, 

    We did use the speaker widget for the majority of our speakers but those larger keynotes that you see listed above are built out using the image and text widgets :) 

    Hope that helps!

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    Sharna Pascolo
    Program Director
    Texas Society of Architects
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  • 7.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-15-2020 12:51
    Thank you Sharna!  I had a feeling you designed the look yourself!  It looks amazing and I plan to copy the idea for our next big conference. 

    Kim

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    Kim Abbott
    North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation
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  • 8.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-09-2020 09:13
    Following.....I have the same questions!!!

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    Tanya Nieto-Winzey
    Conference Coordinator
    Pilates Method Alliance
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  • 9.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-16-2020 16:19
    I have seen some great feedback and looked at other conferences, its a fine line to get poeple to pay for a Virtual event - anyone else out there still working on this process. @Sharna​ this was a great link and the build looks awesome. A lot of detail but it looks awesome and easy to go thru.

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    Karen Owen
    Sr.Registrar, Campaigns & Events Specialist
    SAS Institute Inc.
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  • 10.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-17-2020 09:26
    Hi Karen,

    I would expect that it depends on your content and it's value. We have had speaker and slide only virtual events that did not really add any additional value, so the company did not charge for the event to their attendees. Medical and business conferences that have had training, and presented valuable content to the attendee have charged for the event, and charged additional fees for training and special content. These groups also added special guests as an incentive to attract those that may not have found value in the training, but wanted to attend the conference.

    Best of luck with your event!
    Michael

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    Michael Gaytan
    Director of Technology
    MeetingAdvice, Inc.
    MichaelG@meetingadvice.com
    www.MeetingAdvice.com
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  • 11.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-17-2020 10:01
    We have recently charged for two separate medical events this summer. We took a look at what comparable medical associations were charging, and what offerings were included (ie. credit counts, on-demand components, live engagement opportunities, etc.). Based on some of that research, we decided to charge about 20% of our in-person rates for members and around 40% for non-members. Our virtual offering included more credits than if an attendee were at an in-person event, but had fewer engagement opportunities (limited to broadcasted sessions with peer-to-peer chat, and Q&A segments with the faculty) and did wrap in archived sessions for an on-demand product. 

    We plan for our 2021 virtual programs to be much more robust than what we needed to sticky-tack together for 2020, so we do intend to increase our rates accordingly. As far as success goes, our attendees are physicians on the front-line who have seen major budget cuts. So, not only are they much less available to participate in education during the pandemic, they also have less institutional funding to do so. We garnered about 20% (more than we anticipated, and more than we budgeted) of the attendees that we would have seen onsite, and continue to make impressive sales for the on-demand component. 

    Hope this helps!
    Jade

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    Jade Myers
    Associate Director of Meetings
    Society of Hospital Medicine
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  • 12.  RE: Charging for your event

    Posted 09-17-2020 11:45
    Great information everyone, keep the ideas and decisions on going free virtual to paid events coming, this is helpful. Especially if you are doing Hybrid. I have looked at a few events that are charging and most are keeping their Early Bird in place as well as reducing their 2020 live cost 20-30% for virtual.  What is the true best practice?  And Again, it is all about the content to make it robust and ready for a paying audience.  Karen

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    Karen Owen
    Sr.Registrar, Campaigns & Events Specialist
    SAS Institute Inc.
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  • 13.  RE: Charging for your event

    Community MVP
    Posted 09-17-2020 14:37
    Hi Karen, 

    This is a tough question that I think the whole industry is struggling with! 
    I think charging for virtual events is fair depending on the type of industry you're in. Personally, I currently work for a union, we run on member dues and so decided to not charge for our events. 
    That said, if you have clear value you bring attendees, even in virtual, it's not only fair to charge for it, but will also make your attendance rate better. Things that will impact your value proposition are: 
    - do you provide continuing education credits of some kind?
    - how attractive is your content? (famous speakers, etc)
    - Are you just putting on a string of webinars or will there be true opportunities to interact with the speakers live? Showing it will be live, interactive content, not just recordings, is crucial.
    - What about connecting with other attendees? The need for human connection is bigger than ever! It might be worth dedicating time and money to building networking opportunities using platform like Remo.

    Hope that helps! 
    Cheers,

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    Béline FALZON
    Conference Program Specialist II
    California Teachers Association
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