Since Feb of 2020, thousands of conferences and events have either been straight-up canceled or have attempted to go virtual. I respect, for example, SXSW which did not attempt to do a half-baked virtual replacement for their conference. It seems that many conferences are acting desperate and unable to accept this delay during the pandemic and are setting up events with hundreds of speakers, expecting the Zoom-burned-out viewers are going to huddle up and watch! Not the case.

The most recent such desperate action is taken by Web Summit, which generally hosts upwards of tens of thousands of people in Lisbon, and announced today that they are going virtual.  First, Web Summit should realize that after months of Zoom, taking care of kids at home, no offices, and mentally tuned out viewers, they will not have the right number of participants and/or participants in the right headspace. Second, the multi-hundred speaker line up, coming on mega stages with thousands in the audience, and a great vibe is not replaced by a little camera on a desktop and on and on. The event will not be the same.

So should events like Web Summit, simply call 2020 a wash (a year we would all like to forget) and move on to 2021?  Is it not insane to pretend we can have a productive event in these circumstances?  The next one attempting this insanity is CES.  For all of us who loved going to CES, it was way beyond the talks and it was about the exhibits, the vibe, the networking, the energy.  Let’s face it, folks. Virtual is not the same.  The sooner we accept this, the sooner we will stop pretending that virtual is the same as in-person, and not dilute events, speakers, and disrespect viewers.  Looking forward to a great 2021!