Convene CEO Ryan Simonetti at the headquarters in Manhattan.
Photo: Jackie Molloy For The Wall Street JournalZoom has thrived during the pandemic by offering virtual conferences as an alternative to office gatherings. Now, a firm in the events and meetings business is launching an alternative to Zoom.
Convene, a startup real-estate firm that provides co-working space and meeting locations inside office buildings, introduced last month a video meeting service that will try to recreate as much as possible the feeling of attending a business conference.
Hosts can hold panel discussions and breakout sessions online. Up to 3,000 attendees can send questions to speakers in real time, see a list of event attendees and start private video chats with colleagues, friends or potential clients.
Convene Chief Executive Ryan Simonetti said his virtual meetings are intended to last longer and more closely resemble a conference event than those hosted on Zoom.
“They typically last a day to a day and one-half with multiple live presenters and speakers and often sponsors of booths,” he said.
New York-based Convene said that 23 clients have already booked virtual meetings, including Morningstar Inc. and the Wall Street Technology Association, a trade group.
Convene’s pivot is one of many taking place in the real-estate industry during the pandemic, as property owners and service providers react to the disintegration of their businesses practically overnight. Some hotel owners have been converting properties into rental apartments. Landlords of empty malls have been leasing space to online retailers who are using it for warehousing and distribution.
But, in making these shifts, businesses must take on new competitors, some who have already established major beachheads in the business.
Zoom says it can run meetings with up to 1,000 people on video or Zoom video webinars can be scaled to up to 10,000 attendees.
The company enables users to conduct large-scale events like town hall meetings and workshops, with up to 100 panelists, according to a Zoom regulatory filing last year. Service also includes chat, polling and breakout room features, according to the firm’s website.
Zoom didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Other companies are also trying to get into all-virtual services or expanding their existing platforms, including IMS Technology Services, Omnipress and the Javits Center, New York’s largest conference venue.
Convene said it was on track to have positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in 2020 when the pandemic devastated its conference business, which sponsored about 6,500 meetings in six cities last year. The company said in March that it laid off nearly 20% of its staff and furloughed many others.
Convene’s traditional conference business has almost completely evaporated as the event business has ground to a halt. The firm’s co-working space, which operates over 500,000 square feet in nine locations, has had under a 5% utilization daily, Mr. Simonetti said.
Related Video
Before Covid-19 hit, Convene offered a number of video services like live streaming of keynote addresses to people who wanted to view remotely. But the firm was “very focused on the physical event,” said Tom Zampini, Convene’s chief products officer. Digital services for remote participants was an “add-on” service, he said.
Convene plans to roll out updates to its virtual meetings. A new release planned for the fall will partly focus on trying to attract virtual vendor booths to events. The idea is to “replicate the booth model and the conversation that happens between sponsors and event attendees,” Mr. Simonetti said.
But certain things, of course, can’t be replicated digitally. “What you can’t replicate is the power of physical face-to-face,” Mr. Simonetti said. “Our whole strategy is to use virtual—because that’s the only way we can do it today—to bring people back to physical when the time is right and people feel safe.”
Write to Peter Grant at peter.grant@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"Startup" - Google News
August 11, 2020 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/30JtokC
Startup Office Firm Taking on Zoom in Virtual World - The Wall Street Journal
"Startup" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MXTQ2S
https://ift.tt/2z7gkKJ
No comments:
Post a Comment