The year of 2020 has been the jangling year for all of us. The pandemic, low economic growth all has made the survival difficult for everyone.  But like every coin has two sides, it also turned out to be the best opportunity for the companies to increase their engagement.  Stay home stay safe became the new opportunity for networking and working via virtual road.  With the extended lockdown by the government all over the world all the meeting, submits, seminars and the academic sessions had come to a halt and in this situation the only and prefect alternative left with people is “virtual conferences”

Virtual conferences are the perfect way of hosting the traditional events online in spite of postponing or cancelling them for other time.  They are highly interacting and involve a series of session hosted by different leaders.  The conferences can be at the international level or even held for the employees of the company depending on the subject matter and the concerned audience.  With the help of various virtual conference websites and the tolls one can access easily to the meeting and enlarge their networks. The live events, discussion rooms, seminars, academic sessions, summits all can be done all are the part of the virtual conference.  The availability of chat rooms, search options, screen sharing gives more personal touch to these conferences. 

"Live events are an important source of information for attendees and this is a function that organizers can handle very well with live streaming and content downloads," said Wayne Kurtzman, research Director (IDC). According to the survey of the IDC (international Data Corporation) the virtual conferences were already in the use before the COVID-19 outbreak but after the outbreak the connected customers were having more expectation than before.  As per the half of the population they have the neutral experience but the third of the population stated that they have better experience as compared to the in-person experience.  However, these research surveys do help in the growth of the virtual conferences to make their space in the market as audience do rely on the various analysis to choose which website or which tool to prefer for better experience. Moreover, the data released by the research market has over a time regarding virtual world has make the conferences trustworthy and more popular.

The territorial coverage of the virtual conferences has no limits. Any person from any corner of the world can join the meeting if he has internet connection and a device.  This proves to be the best opportunity for the host to increase his audience.  The barrier of the location had been removed and while maintaining the preferable social distance everyone can attend the event. The discussion and Q/A sessions are more interacting as more people were able to give their inputs.  Those who find it difficult to socialize or have stage fear are more engaged on virtual conferences and able to socialize without much anxiety. The no travel cost, no staying cost made it easier to attend more and more conferences. One only needs a laptop and the good internet connectivity.

But the people who are more habitual to work while staying between the people and prefer interacting in person face a lot of problem while virtual conferences. Staring at the screen for longer hours, sitting at home all the time does lead to low productivity. They avoid the conferences or are not active in them.  Those who are used to of travelling for attending the meeting and conferences are not so fond of the virtual meet ups. They do get mentally tired by the end of the day only after attending a single conference.  The other con can be total cut-off from the working environment.  It has been seen that while working from home people are no more willing to go office because they are comfortable at home. 

But if we weigh the pros and cons it is crystal clear that virtual conferences have proven the helping hand in the times of crises. From academic to industrial, from discussions to live events everything was done with ease and with lower cost. Work from home became the new strategy for companies to work with ease.