To stay relevant over the past year, meeting professionals have taken a deep dive into the tools and techniques for managing online events. It’s been a sink-or-swim environment that, while undoubtedly stressful, has resulted in new competencies for individual planners and expanded the possibilities for content delivery into the future.

Just how much have event professionals adapted? Consider this statistic: In May 2020, just 4.2 percent of planners considered themselves to be virtual event “experts.” Today, that figure has jumped to just over 20 percent.

That’s among the results of a March 2021 survey of 1,600 event planners conducted by Hubb, a virtual event platform based in Vancouver, Wash.  Here’s what else Hubb learned about the changes in planners’ digital event experience, spring 2021 versus spring 2020:

• Now: 83 percent have experience planning and hosting virtual events. Then: 45 percent

• Now: 33 percent have planned at least one large virtual event. Then: 9.5 percent

• Now: 3 percent have not planned or attended a virtual event. Then: 14.3 percent

“These findings prove that event planners moved with urgency and flexibility this past year. The dramatic adoption in virtual event planning will no doubt shape how we proceed as an industry,” said Allie Magyar, CEO of Hubb.

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For more on the evolution of meeting departments and the skills and processes needed to balance in-person and online event management, read “The New Meetings Team” in the May/June issue of MeetingsNet.