<aside> 🔥 It's pretty simple: using our Virtual Events solution will make the experience more exciting and engaging for participants. That means they'll pay to sign up to your events again in future.
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In the past, Virtual Events have been drawn out and monotonous for participants. You sign up; you do your run; then you email a photo of your finish time to the organizer. You await your medal, and when you receive it, you have no-one to celebrate your achievement with. If you're lucky, you're sent to a Facebook group that feels very removed from the event itself.
The Virtual Event was open-ended, often lasting up to 30 days. This resulted in a drip-feed of finishing times that made finisher lists feel static, and killed off the buzz you'd expect at the finish line of a live event.
It's perhaps not surprising that the experience was so lacklustre: Virtual Events were a niche offering, usually tied to large live events. COVID-19 has changed all that, with the market for Virtual Events booming, as the outlook for live events looks completely suppressed.
<aside> 🔥 We start with a simple premise: when doing a Virtual Event, people want the same sense of excitement and camaraderie that they get from live events. They want to connect with those around them, celebrate their achievements, and feel the buzz of reaching the finish line.
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We reimagined the entire experience to make it more engaging and bring some of the best parts of live events online.
People have different motivations for signing up to an event. Some like to complete it with friends; others want a PR. But whatever their motivation, they want to share their experience with other people.
After we released the option to upload a finisher's photo, an astonishing 48% of finishers uploaded a photo when uploading their run. Participants are increasingly looking for a sense of community, and are finding it in our finisher's gallery.
Soon, we'll release features that allow participants to engage with each others' photos.
Our virtual finish lines let participants connect and celebrate their achievements with each other.
An example finisher board
One of the best things about live events is the camaraderie between finishers. That's why we've prioritized engagement with fellow finishers over rankings. The finisher board and photo gallery are automatically updated in the order of result submission to recreate that finish line feeling for your participants.
That said, we understand that many participants want to know where they stack up versus other finishers, so we've given them the ability to filter and sort the leaderboard to see where they stand at the finish line. See an example here.
As an Event Organizer, you know how critical it is that your course is the right distance, and your timing technology provides accurate finish times. To replicate these high standards in your Virtual Events, we ask participants to submit proof of their activity using a running app or GPS watch. These verified times are marked by a blue tick (see the finisher board above).
This verification confirms the legitimacy of each participant's result, and reassures participants of the professionalism of your events.
The results submission page
A major advantage of Virtual Events is reduced overheads. This gives you more creative freedom when designing your events. A great way to take advantage of this is to create an event series. This offers you a recurring revenue stream, but more importantly it allows you to build loyalty and brand, and long-lasting relationships with your participants.
Easy Day Sports' Social Distance Run Series, is a great example, with over 7,000 finishers in its first 3 weeks.
The Social Distance Run Series had over 7,000 finishers in the first 3 weeks of its virtual series
We are building the best series functionality to give you the opportunity to engage with your participants in a new, exciting and ongoing way.
Running is best done together. We've seen participants consistently signing up their friends to join them at their Virtual Event. Our sign-up flow makes it easy for participants to sign up with friends and family. For every transaction on our site, we sell 1.3 tickets (see opposite).
We also give people the ability to easily share your events with the people they love most across social media at multiple points during their event experience. This is one reason why sign-ups from social sharing are increasing as a percentage of total sign-ups (see below).
Since 1st April, for every transaction on our site (in blue), 1.3 tickets are sold (in green).
More people are finding out about Virtual Events through social sharing (in grey).
Your participants are what make an event, so it's paramount that participants are able to find your event. We have added dedicated Virtual Events search functionality for US Virtual Events and UK Virtual Events, with the ability to filter by location and date, making it easy for participants to find and sign up for your events.