Cherwell Software will hold its popular service management conference, Clear, virtually this year, and the company is making sure that every potential advantage of holding a major conference in the digital format is investigated. They are committed to ensuring that Clear 2020 Virtual is a unique on-line experience for both new attendees and the event’s faithful core of attendees.
The Clear conference started as a user conference, where customers could come, swap stories, and network. What started with 300 attendees has become an enormously anticipated yearly service management event in the industry. The live event is traditionally three and a half days long, with 85+ speakers, 3-hour deep-dive training, and social networking activities. That experience has improved each year as attendance showed consistent year-over-year growth. And those original attendees still show up for the yearly convergence of ideas, certification training, professional growth opportunities, and much more.
In 2020 Clear is going fully digital. While the choice to host a virtual event this year was one that was mandated by the COVID-19 crisis, Cherwell is making sure to take full advantage of opportunities a virtual conference can offer that an in-person one can’t.
First, the most obvious benefit of a virtual event: No travel, no hotels needed, no need to be away from home, or from other work concerns. “Those barriers are gone now,” says Ida Pennymon, Senior Director, Global Marketing for Cherwell.
In fact, as evidence of the conferences’ surging popularity, a European version of the Clear conference was scheduled as a two-day live event in London earlier this year, but was canceled less than a week before the announced March 9th debut due to concerns over attendees safety with growing concerns about the pandemic crowding out the news. Pennymon knew the company could simply cancel the event without being hit too hard by criticism, considering the then-growing panic over COVID-19. But with half the crew already on location in London for the live event, the team mobilized.
Without having ever done a virtual even of this size before, Pennymon and her event management team decided to modify the plans instead of canceling, revising the Clear 2020 Europe conference as a virtual event to be held on May 9th and 10th.
Cherwell was determined to keep as many features of the initially announced event as possible while adding many that would not have been possible with an in-person experience. In five weeks, they were able to get it done.
“Somehow we pulled off a masterpiece,” Pennymon says when recalling the logistical challenges Cherwell faced with that short five-week window to fully transition an event from one format (an in-person conference) to another (virtual space.) “I’m really proud of that effort,” Pennymon adds.
Asked what the most important elements of that successful transition to digital were, Pennymon mentioned three key elements:
- Cherwell made sure they had reliable and user-friendly registration tools in place. They had used CVENT for their in-person events, but they chose Marketo to promote the event and assure an easy sign-up process, allowing people to sign up for seminars as soon as the information became available.
- A strong platform: the company went with ON24 for the London virtual event. They enhanced an existing relationship and took advantage of ON24’s more robust EngagementHub and On Target solutions for the virtual event.
- Cherwell used the same production team they had used for the video segments used during past years’ Clear Conferences, Two Rivers Pictures. Two Rivers was able to integrate video content with PowerPoint presentations, making the project much bigger for them in virtual than it would have been at an in-person event.
As far as the most essential team members to count on during the rollup to a virtual event:
- A social media promoter
- A customer marketing person, to suggest all internal and customer communications copy.
- A speaker manager is absolutely necessary.
- A sponsor manager is, as well.
- And an entertainment manager for directing social activities, and doing things like sending swag bags to the attendees “so they have something cool to open before the event begins.”
Cherwell learned a lot from that European event, and is proceeding with the next Clear event with a new and different structure, and not at all shackled to the structure of a conference that had been scheduled as a live event first.
The upcoming October Clear 2020 Virtual event will be shorter and more concise. The agenda is four half-days over two weeks. This format allows them to take advantage of the scheduling miracles a virtual event affords that a live event can’t hope to replicate, and allows for attendees to participate while juggling their work-from-home schedules.
Data gathered from the European event determined that a length of about 20 minutes for the regular speaker sessions was ideal. Data gathered from virtual gatherings – including from sponsor sources – is another major bonus of going virtual.
To make up for the lack of in-person meeting-and-greeting, attendees will be able to connect during the event and can search the attendee list to visit that person’s LinkedIn profile.
“I hope this shows our devotion to our customers,” Pennymon says. “We want to be a consistent presence in these uncertain times. Not in a pushy way, but in a ‘we’re still developing our platform and services to meet your new needs’ kind of way. I think the fact that we’ve taken this online instead of canceling shows our commitment to not only our customers, but the entire service management industry.”
As far as other advice for people wanting to put together a large digital event, Pennymon offers:
- Do your research, find and read as many online sources as you can.
- The virtual event doesn’t have to be a clone of an in-person event. Figure out a way to make a virtual event its own unique experience.
- Attend as many other virtual events as you can, to see what others are doing right.
Pennymon sees a future where the big industry events will be combo virtual/in-person affairs since the virtual element allows for so many others to be involved and attend. Many of the insights, innovations, discussions, and inspiration that were originally planned for the live Clear 2020 global conference in Denver, Colorado, have been packaged into an online experience—beginning live the week of October 12, and remaining on-demand for registered attendees post-conference. Moving to a virtual format will allow Cherwell to accommodate for their ever-expanding global audience.
The Clear 2020 Virtual conference will be held online beginning the week of October 12, 2020.
