Virtual Event Platform: Hosting Engaging Virtual Events For Marketing

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on Virtual Event Platforms. In today’s rapidly evolving world, virtual events have become a powerful medium for connecting people, fostering engagement, and delivering impactful experiences. Whether you’re hosting a business conference, trade show, webinar, or social gathering, virtual event platforms offer myriad innovative tools and features to bring your events to life in the digital realm. This blog will take you through the leading virtual event platforms, exploring their capabilities and functionalities. We’ll delve into the benefits of virtual events, the different types of platforms, and how to choose the right one to suit your event needs. Join us as we unlock the potential of virtual event platforms and pave the way for memorable, interactive, and successful virtual events that transcend geographical boundaries and cater to a global audience. Let’s embark on this exciting adventure together!

What Is a Virtual Event Platform?

A virtual event platform is a tool that helps your digital event take place and flourish. It’s a way to bring that live event feel into the digital world through smart technology with audio, visual, and interactive elements.

At the heart of any great virtual event platform is a way for people to connect. Consider creating a digital business card to facilitate seamless connections and trust-building. The goal is to increase audience engagement through interactive, immersive environments and touchpoints.

With the right virtual event platform, you’ll be able to make use of features and engagement tools like:

• Breakout spaces for networking
• Gamification
• Live streaming
• Polling
• Q&A sessions and fireside chats
• Virtual meetups
• Virtual booths
• Workshop facilitation

Some virtual event platforms also support you on the admin side of event planning with event registration and ticketing. These full-featured event management platforms help simplify your process to plan, run, and support a virtual event easily.

While a digital event lacks that face-to-face connection, the best virtual event platforms help you recreate that atmosphere — and allow people to join you from wherever they are. This technology opens up your event to many more people and gives them an immersive experience.

Best Tools for Virtual Event Platforms

Hosting a networking event calls for a tool designed with conversations in mind. You need something that feels like an in-person event as much as possible. Here are five of our top virtual event software picks for networking events.

vFairs

vfairs is an award-winning virtual events platform that helps you host amazing virtual and in-person conferences of all sizes. You can even create a user-friendly virtual venue to mimic real-life venues, which can be fully customized. To enhance user connections, vFairs offers a variety of networking features, including text, audio, and video chat; roundtable discussions; smart attendee matchmaking; advanced user search and filter functions.

Additionally, they offer thorough real-time reports on all of these areas to assist you in gauging how well your audience is receiving the experience. They also offer virtual scavenger hunts, leaderboards, picture booths, social network walls, trivia, and more appealing features!

Best for:

Highly interactive, user-friendly all-in-one large events.

Pricing:

Quotes are customized to each event’s needs and are charged as single-event, multi-event, or annual licenses.

Hoppier

Hoppier is a virtual event platform that lets you create bespoke virtual experiences that increase attendee engagement. With Hoppier virtual cards, your event guests can order drinks, lunch, or treats from their favourite local vendors right to their door. It’s event catering at scale but without the logistics problems.

This innovative method of catering for events gives visitors a special experience. It’s perfect for meetings, happy hour, virtual lunches, and more. Hoppier virtual cards can be used as a fun substitute for conference goodie bags or to say “thank you” to event sponsors and exhibitors.

Best for:

Creative guest catering and corporate gifting

Pricing:

From $5 per virtual card

Also read : Best Collaboration Tools and Software to Use (Free and Paid)

We’ve

Weve is a virtual events platform with ‘fun’ at its core. It is good for groups as small as 10 and as large as 2,000. Their hook is to make virtual gatherings into spirited games. They can do live broadcasts in their lobby, breakouts, screen sharing, and all the basic meeting requirements.

But the platform stands out because of its talented hosts and emcees. Of course, you can DIY it instead of using their host. These events are hilarious because of the dozens of adaptable game modules like fact-match, Pictionary, and buzz-in.

Best for:

Turnkey solution for fun teambuilding events

Pricing:

From USD 299 per virtual event, based on your expected number of guests

Dreamcast

Dreamcast is an advanced virtual events platform built to host immersive virtual and hybrid events of all sizes. With Dreamcast, users can create an interactive virtual space mirroring actual physical venues and customize them as needed. Dreamcast includes networking tools such as text, audio, and video chat options, as well as interactive roundtable discussions, which help improve attendee engagement. 

This platform comes equipped with artificial intelligence-based matchmaking as well as advanced search and filter features for users. Furthermore, Dreamcast offers detailed real-time analytics to help measure event success and attendee engagement in general

Dreamcast includes social media walls, Q&A, and more to spice things up a little. This includes leaderboards, photo booths, and virtual scavenger hunts to make things interesting

Best for:

Highly interactive, customizable virtual and hybrid events of any size.

Pricing:

For a quote for your event, the pricing for individual, multiple-event, or yearly licenses is tailored to each event’s requirements.

SpatialChat

SpatialChat takes your event guests out of their homes or offices and into a virtual space — a conference stage, virtual office setup, or poolside getaway. It’s fun to stage unique activities for your team or guests.

With the aid of this striking virtual event platform, you can design a more engaging setting for conferences, informal gatherings, team-building exercises, and cocktail parties. It provides a smooth chat system, screen sharing, video content, and text chat.

Best for:

Immersive digital networking

Pricing:

Free plans are available and paid plans from $49.99 per month

Mesh

Mesh, formerly known as Bash, helps you create fun virtual worlds for your event guests to explore. These 2D spaces are a refreshing alternative to a sleek background and are ideal for casual get-togethers or events in industries like marketing, gaming, or tech.

By moving their character about in Mesh, visitors may explore your event venue much like they would in real life. A chat box will show up once someone is close enough to converse. The areas can also be completely customized by working with the Mesh team to design unique backgrounds.

Best for:

A retro, gaming-inspired atmosphere

Pricing:

Free for up to 25 participants, paid plans start at $5 per user

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Mixily

Mixily is a simple, all-in-one virtual event platform that lets you plan and manage small events for friends, family, and colleagues. It has a boutique, community-led feel, which makes it great for intimate gatherings and casual meetings.

A step up from Facebook events, this simple solution enables you to give your visitors branded video call experiences. The platform offers anything, including landing pages and ticketing assistance.

Best for:

Simple all-in-one events platform

Pricing:

Free, except for the ticketing support, which has a 1% and $0.30 fee applied to each ticket sold, plus credit card processing charges.

Also read : How To Make Sure Your Remote Team Is Happy And Productive

Hopin

Hopin offers a comprehensive set of management and hosting features for up to 100,000 guests for virtual events. It’s a popular tool loved by event planners worldwide, giving teams multiple ways to recreate that in-person feel at a virtual event.

With this industry-leading virtual conference technology, attendees may network via live video, trade digital business cards, participate in breakout sessions, watch keynote speeches live on stage, and tour interactive exhibit areas. An inventive feature for rapid networking is also available, which is great for large conferences and trade events. It’s a technique that works well for inactive attendees who can observe a discussion or session before becoming visible and engaging with the community.

Best for:

Connection-focused conferences

Pricing:

Free up to 100 participants

Hubilo

Hublio allows businesses to scale their hybrid events and improve stakeholder return on investment thanks to its focus on creating an experience that works for all. It’s a platform that focuses on guest experience and sponsor experience equally.

With entertaining elements like gamification, this platform fights virtual event fatigue. For attending seminars, stopping by exhibitor booths, and corresponding with other attendees, visitors can earn points. These points enable players to advance on a scoreboard and qualify for event swag. The greater interaction makes it simpler for event planners to attract sponsors and exhibitors.

Best for:

A great experience for all stakeholders

Pricing:

Available on request

Accelevents

Accelevents is an all-in-one virtual & hybrid events platform that empowers event organizers and marketing professionals to create authentic human connections and drive sustainable growth. With a focus on growth acceleration, the Accelevents platform is designed to capture actionable analytics throughout the event ecosystem that translates into measurable marketing and sales performance strategies. A few of the platform’s popular features include seamless live streaming, in-depth analytic reports, interactive and customizable exhibitor booths, and 1:1 speed networking.

Accelevents offers several conferences, summits, fundraisers, educational seminars, team-building activities, job fairs, community networking, festivals, and more on a hybrid, online, and in-person basis. No matter the event, Accelevents’ customer service is accessible around the clock to ensure everyone has a great time!‍

Best for:

Intuitive Interface, Real-Time Analytics & Dashboards, Customer Service‍

Pricing:

Free Trial; Plans start at $500 and only pay for attendees who show up!

Tame

Tame is a creative virtual event platform focusing on design and customization. It features a slick interface where you can customize and optimize the event experience to the last detail.

This tool works brilliantly for conferences with audiences of 500 people or more. Multiple live tracks, lone meetings, breakout sessions, and exhibitor booths can be added. If your selected speakers are booked, hosting pre-recorded content as if it were live is very simple.

Best for:

Highly customizable branded events

Pricing:

Available on request

Snap bar

Snapbar offers you an innovative way to bring the popular event photo booth to your virtual or hybrid event. Build connections and create authentic user-generated content with Snapbar’s web-based, virtual photo booths.

The experience can be completely branded with a unique start screen, color scheme, URL, overlays, stickers, and more. An optional AI background removal tool makes it easy to add branded backgrounds to images. Additionally, visitors can leave with a unique memento from the occasion.

Best for:

Creative virtual photo booths

Pricing:

Available on request

Gamerjibe

Gamerjibe offers your guests an exciting 3D virtual world to explore. This intuitive event platform recreates a digital conference space or event hall that guests can navigate with plenty of interactive elements to enjoy.

This virtual event platform is one of the closest you’ll find to an in-person experience. Your visitors can explore the area, approach booths, view movies, participate in streaming discussions, and interact with your branded content using their avatars in different places.

Best for:

An immersive virtual world

Pricing:

From $299 per month

Splash

Splash is a useful virtual event platform for event managers and marketers who run virtual, hybrid, and physical events. This tool helps you organize everything in one place to streamline your process and focus more on creating an amazing guest experience.

This all-in-one virtual event platform includes invitations, registration forms, virtual waiting rooms, live streaming, and post-event information. It is made to assist you in delivering a unified brand experience to your customers at every stage of the customer journey. This solution is also interoperable, so you can easily transfer your data into your CRM, email marketing, or internal communications platforms.

Best for:

Running both virtual and in-person events

Pricing:

Free, with paid plans starting at $9,500 per year

Also read : What is Webinar? How It Works – Top 10 Software You Can Use For It

Demio by Banzai

Demio is designed to make marketers’ lives easier. It’s a seamless communication platform that helps marketers fuel growth through webinars. Demio is part of Banzai’s engagement suite: a collection of B2B marketing solutions that transform virtual events from “nay” to “yay.” Webinars should be fun, engaging, and effective to generate high-quality leads.

Demio provides the essentials, like event chat, surveys, Q&A, and downloads, in an easy-to-use manner that promotes participant engagement. The app also offers a simple reporting dashboard that displays the typical statistics regarding the duration of a webinar or poll, the response rates, and the length of time your audience paid attention until they drifted off. You may benchmark your performance and enhance your content using this information. Demio fits into your marketing stack and takes much of the burden out of managing webinar campaigns, which we appreciate most. The software integrates with Marketo, HubSpot, Salesforce Pardot, and other widely used marketing applications.

Demio offers a 14-day free trial, so you can give it a go before committing to a month or year subscription.

Best for:

Marketing lead generation, sales demos, customer adoption, & training

Pricing:

From $34 per month

Livestorm

Livestorm is an events management platform that lets you work the full event lifecycle — planning, running, promoting, and analyzing your virtual event. You can run webinars, demos, and sales calls and easily transfer that information to your CRM afterward — making it perfect for sales and marketing teams.

Livestorm enables live, interactive sessions where visitors may ask and answer questions and participate in polls instead of only providing webinars. For busy organizations that wish to perform sessions for onboarding, training, or demoing new features, hosts may also build automatic webinars, which is ideal.

Best for:

Clean and elegant video calls and demos

Pricing:

Free with paid plans from $99 per month

Also read : Webinar Platforms: Hosting Engaging Webinars for Marketing and Education

Conclusion

In conclusion, virtual event platforms have revolutionized connecting and engaging in the digital age. From webinars and conferences to trade shows and networking events, these platforms offer a wide array of features that bring people together worldwide. As we adapt to the changing events landscape, embracing virtual solutions becomes more important. With the power to reach a global audience, reduce costs, and provide interactive experiences, virtual event platforms have proven to be a game-changer for businesses, organizations, and individuals. The journey of exploring and leveraging virtual event platforms is ongoing, with continuous advancements and innovations shaping the landscape. So, dive into virtual events, explore the top platforms, and unlock new possibilities for your events, no matter the size or scope. Embrace the future of event hosting, and let these platforms empower you to create memorable and immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact on your attendees.

FAQs

What are virtual event platforms, and how do they work?

Virtual event platforms are digital solutions that facilitate hosting events, conferences, or gatherings in an online environment. They offer interactive features like live streaming, chat rooms, virtual booths, and networking spaces to engage attendees virtually.

What types of events are suitable for virtual platforms?

How can virtual event platforms enhance attendee engagement?

Virtual event platforms offer a range of interactive tools that promote engagement among attendees. Features like Q&A sessions, polls, virtual exhibits, and one-on-one networking opportunities create an immersive experience and encourage active participation.

What factors should I consider when choosing a virtual event platform?

When selecting a virtual event platform, consider factors such as the platform’s scalability, ease of use, security measures, customization options, analytics capabilities, and integration with other tools like CRM systems. Evaluating these aspects will help you find the ideal platform that aligns with your event goals and delivers a seamless experience for your participants.