When it comes to virtual events you should not go it alone. The most successful virtual events are almost always a collaboration of companies contributing to the success of the event from their expertise. While you concentrate on your brand and your content, the virtual event management company is 100% focused on your audience’s experience. In this article, we’ll tell you all you need to know to partner with the right virtual event management company for your needs. We include a list of the top 10 companies worldwide in our opinion.
Jump to:
- What are virtual event management companies?
- What do virtual event management companies do?
- Kaltura Virtual Events – all you need to know
- Top 10 virtual event management companies
What Are Virtual Event Management Companies?
The CoVID-19 pandemic has transformed the event industry. No doubt about that. Physical events have been put on pause for the time being. The emergence and success of virtual and hybrid events have created a storm in the industry.
2020 was a year of trailblazers in the virtual event industry. Tech giants like Salesforce, AWS, and Adobe moved their annual events and summits online and started exploring the possibilities of digital to turn their virtual events into unique and unforgettable experiences for their audiences. They pushed the envelope and set new standards for virtual event success.
Today, it takes quite a bit of know-how to set up a successful virtual event. From the initial concept, organization, and event promotion, to the orchestration of the actual event and the follow-up so many things can and eventually do go wrong. And this is where virtual event management companies come into play.
Virtual event management companies have the expertise and experience to handle all aspects of a client’s virtual event project, from start to finish. These companies make sure no loose ends are left to make you blush in front of your audience. They provide the support and backup plans to ensure your virtual event’s success.
What Do Virtual Event Management Companies Do?
How do virtual or hybrid events differ from traditional physical events? They are (partly) organized online. They are easily scalable, present a lower cost and lower friction for attendees to register and attend. All of this is true and known. But the most powerful distinction on a business level is that virtual/hybrid events enable a hyper-personalized experience for the visitor.
A successful personalized experience will give each attendee the content they need and will ultimately increase conversions and brand awareness. In our opinion, creating personalized and engaging experiences for your audience is one of the most important tasks an event management company can fulfill for you. It should figure high on your wish list when shopping for the best partner for your virtual event.
The main tasks of virtual event management companies are to ideate, plan, organize, execute, and coordinate virtual events for their clients.
Within these tasks, virtual event management companies will offer support and consultation to:
- Develop creative ideas that will make your event unique and memorable.
- Research and book speakers and acts.
- Promote your event and drive registrations
- Set up the technology and event platform
- Ensure smooth execution and contingency plans
- Apply virtual events best practices
- Manage your budget
- … and more.
Kaltura Virtual Events – All You Need to Know
Alongside a virtual event management company to partner with, you’ll need a platform on which to host your virtual event. Your virtual event platform should be reliable, robust, secure, comprehensive, and flexible. Kaltura Virtual Events, the leading virtual events platform, checks all these five qualities while offering state-of-the-art solutions for each stage of your event, from planning to execution and follow-up.
Kaltura Virtual Events is first and foremost about your brand, your community, and your experience. It has all the bells and whistles to offer your visitors a hyper-personalized and engaging experience, no matter the scale of your virtual event. Among Kaltura Virtual Events’ comprehensive list of features:
- Interactive features such as live chat, reactions, polls and quizzes, gamification, and interactive video paths.
- Extensive distribution options to social media channels or repurposing to on-demand video content to your landing page, website, or company video repository.
- Accessibility tools like captions and automatic translations.
- Search and discovery features to filter and find content, but also personal agendas, content recommendations, and personal media collections so no visitor needs to miss out on relevant content.
- Powerful sponsor features such as dedicated branded spaces, chat options, banner ads, bumper videos, and analytics for effective follow-up with leads.
Kaltura Virtual Events is built on Kaltura’s robust open-source video experience cloud with 99.995% uptime for both live and on-demand video across viewing platforms. Kaltura’s smart use of html5 technology, ABR (adaptive bitrate streaming), and eCDN delivers a reliable and optimal viewing experience to any device and with any connection. Your content is fully secure with Single Sign-On (SSO) features and Digital Rights Management (DRM). Kaltura Virtual Events is also fully compliant with industry regulations and standards for privacy and accessibility, including GDPR, ISO, DPA, and VPAT. Lastly, Kaltura’s virtual events solution is highly flexible, meaning you can completely customize your event to make it a 100% branded and unique experience, the way you envision it!
Now, here’s the kicker. Kaltura also offers fully tailored virtual event management services and White-Glove support. You can call on Kaltura’s planning and design event services to help you create the best experience possible for your brand and audience. Kaltura also proposes event operations support to ensure a smooth event. In other words, your virtual event will be managed by a team that has longstanding expertise in creating unique a virtual event at scale, AND a deep understanding and working knowledge of the technology.
Want to learn more about Kaltura Virtual Events? Get a tour!
Top 10 Virtual Event Management Companies
- VOK Dams Worldwide (DE)
VOK Dams vows to create brand experiences that inspire the world. They describe themselves as events and live marketing specialists for projects of all sizes and cater to marquee brands such as BMW, IBM, Adidas, Porsche, SAP, and TikTok. This German event manager keeps innovation front and center. Live-Plus marketing automation is the future, at VOK Dams, integrating the live channel into the marketing automation process to develop personalized, customized, and automated live marketing and event and follow-up campaigns as part of a holistic customer journey.
- GPJ Experience Marketing (US)
GPJ powers digital brand experiences from the biggest events to the smallest screens, for clients such as Google, Facebook, Capcom, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, and Honda. They are longtime specialists in experiential marketing and continue to invest in digital tools, data analytics, and creative and live production talent to safeguard their leading position in the field of digital and virtual events. Based in Detroit, they currently employ more than 1,400 people in 30 offices, worldwide.
- Jack Morton Worldwide (US)
If Jack Morton’s impressive client list is any indication of the quality of their work, they deserve a spot on this top 10 list. They service countless Forbes’ List and Fortune 100 customers, such as Waze, Uber, NFL, MillerCoors, Honeywell, VMware, Google, and Adidas. They’ve been creating extraordinary event experiences for the last 80 years, first live, and now also virtual and hybrid events. They have earned accolades such as Brand Experience Agency of the Year and Best Virtual Experience. Jack Morton is investing in “touchless experiences” and “low-touch technology” to future-proof their events.
- Freeman (US)
Freeman has done amazing events for the likes of Dell, MTV, Pepsi, Audi, VidCon, and many more. They organize about 19 events per day worldwide on average and have earned no less than 132 industry awards in the past two years. Freeman puts a lot of emphasis on content and creating stories, rather than simply telling them. They also understand the importance of gamification in virtual events to stimulate engagement and creativity.
- Pico Group (HK)
Pico Group understands and transforms brands. They’re very active on the Asian and Middle Eastern markets, setting up mega-events for the Mother of the Nation Festival in Abu Dhabi and the 7th edition of iLight in Singapore. In 2020, they won major contracts at Expo 2020 Dubai and the Tokyo Olympics. They also organized events for major international brands such as BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Mercedes-Benz. They see investments in technology as the driver of their success, more particularly tech that harnesses data intelligence and analytics.
- Opus Agency (US)
Opus Agency suggests immersing people in your brand to forge a lasting connection. This Oregon-based virtual event management company has delivered powerful experiences to the audiences of the likes of Dell, General Electric, Microsoft, YouTube, Salesforce, Cisco, and Google. Opus favors innovations and creative solutions and weaves creativity into each aspect of their virtual events. They are not afraid to help their clients adopt solutions that are beyond their comfort zone.
- Ashfield Meetings and Events (US)
Ashfield Meetings and Events traditionally caters to the healthcare industry, creating exceptional experiences that engage the audience emotionally, intellectually, and creatively. So, if your organization is active within healthcare, Ashfield is a logical choice. Plus, this Pennsylvania-based event management company runs a business with a heart, cultivating an amazing company culture for its employees and participating in good causes. Organizations outside the healthcare industry can now benefit from Ashfield’s quality of service through its sister brand, Spark Thinking.
- Balich Worldwide Shows (IT)
Balich Worldwide Shows, an internationally established creative company based in Milan, orchestrates special projects and large-scale events such as the Olympic Ceremonies. Balich’s approach, which has served them well for over 20 years, is to elicit emotions through what they do. They call themselves emotional engineers, creating stories that reach people’s hearts. Balich also gained huge acclaim with their permanent show, “Last Judgement – The Secrets of the Sistine Chapel,” in Rome. This show proved that Balich Worldwide Shows truly understands the art of Artainment and the amplification of emotion through technology.
- CWT Meetings & Events (US)
CWT Meetings & Events creates live and virtual events that excite, engage, and exceed. This family-run company is based in Minneapolis but operates from 68 offices globally and has managed close to 40,000 meetings and events so far (they also do incentives and other activities). CWT strives to create fresh, innovative, creative, and engaging events. For the CWT team, the recipe for successful events lies in the combination of immersive experiences, real-time feedback, speaker optimization, and social media integration.
- First Global Events Agency (US)
First is a global brand experience agency that’s passionate about telling stories that connect people to the world’s top brands. This 25-year-old award-winning ‘growth agency with a boutique feel’ has Mercedes-Benz, Yahoo!, Verizon, Northwell Health, Netflix, and Univision among its clients. First’s events are built around 5 pillars: content, creativity, digital technology, management and delivery, and data and insights.
All the virtual event management companies reviewed in this article are top-notch agencies that will put their hearts and expertise at work to deliver the best virtual event possible. You won’t go far wrong with any of them. We added links to the homepages of the listed agencies for your convenience so you can get more information or talk to one of their agents.
If you are also on the lookout for a powerful cloud-based solution on which to host your virtual event, then check out Kaltura Virtual Events!
Create engaging and powerful virtual event experiences for your audience… with Kaltura Virtual Events!
