Karen Ashwin

When you think of “millennials”, what do you picture? Impatient, fickle, job hoppers, disloyal, trophy hunters. Perhaps you’ve heard that they're tech-savvy, always connected, need instant gratification, and are hard to impress. This isn't surprising given the stereotypes out there.All the traits used to describe millennials presents a perception gap between what brands attempt to communicate and offer millennials and how they end up receiving, processing, and responding to it. Meetings and events that don’t take millennial preferences and desires into account will struggle to attract and engage the next generation.So, how can brands be better at catering events and meetings for millennials?

Should you charge a registration fee to attend your virtual event? How do you price tickets for online events? If your content has value, should it be given away? And if an event is free, is the perception of value lost? The debate is on.

Before the COVID19 pandemic live events, exhibitions, conferences and seminars were a major source of revenue. Now, virtual events are the new normal. While most are still free, monetizing them will become necessary to make them sustainable. To Fee or Free will be less of an option with the rise of hybrid events. After all, how can you charge in-person guests but not your remote attendees?

Coming in first place in the region in terms of events has usually been the United Arab Emirates; more specifically in the popular Dubai and Abu Dhabi areas. The small country hosts the most events in the region on a per capita basis. The Saudi government decided to jump onto this bandwagon.

The possibilities and variety that come with providing both online and physical options has major benefits for companies to reach and connect with more people across the globe. But, hosting a hybrid event understandably comes with challenges, the most mystifying of which is the challenge of merging the digital and physical experience. It is not a simple case of staging an in-person event and an online one under the same banner, and expecting them to rendezvous. Nor is it a case of organizing a live event and streaming it to an online audience.