Manish at Eventcombo, a New York based platform specialising in hybrid and virtual events, invited Matthew to give the keynote at its annual summit on the Future of Events and Event Tech, a subject close to the event organisers he works with around the world, all still reeling from the pandemic.
Matthew first set out the damage. The pandemic wiped out over $30 Billion in revenues in the US alone and put a $1.5 Trillion industry on its knees, as players tried to pivot their businesses and business models just to survive.
"Future events will go from the in person, hybrid, and virtual events we're all accustomed to today, to highly complex mixed reality and fully immersive events that attract not hundreds of thousands of attendees but tens of millions."Matthew Griffin, New York, June 2021
It also fuelled some of the biggest venture capital investments the industry has seen, including $250 Million into Hopin, as organisers rushed to move events online and looked for simpler ways to make everything work. That shift, and the fresh money behind it, accelerated a wave of multi-sided events platforms that he expects will be the industry incumbents for years to come.
He then looked ahead to what events will become: beyond today's in person, hybrid and virtual formats to complex mixed reality and fully immersive events attracting not hundreds of thousands of attendees, but tens of millions. His message to the audience was that the events of the future will look very different from the events of today.
