MIAMI — The events business has been crushed by the pandemic, and physical events won’t come back until next fall.
As events producers and publishers shift to virtual events, the results have been mixed, observes Brian Morrissey, long time editor-in-chief of Digiday, who stepped down from his position in October.
He suggests that events scheduled this Spring as physical events will inevitably become virtual.
In my podcast with Brian, he points to the upside of virtual events of allowing more extensive programming with speakers being more readily available via a Zoom call from home.
On the downside is the business imperative for sponsors who expect in-person networking. And admission prices are nearly free now, making the business of event registration problematic. There are too many events and they are becoming “commoditized” he observes.
But for business publishers who retain a close relationship with a particular industry sector, there are a plethora of other monetization opportunities.
Also in the session, he shares his views on media trade publishing, which he suggests need to be more tech focused vs. personality driven. And he reflects on the trend of out of work journalists who have embraced micro publishing on Substack. He doesn’t see it as sustainable for most.
We caught up with Brian in Miami last week where he is evaluating his next moves.
His platform at the moment is his weekly newsletter call The Rebooting. If you are keen to see what’s next in business publishing sign up.
Note from the Editor: Thanks Brian for your support of Beet.TV, my work and for your kind words about it in this session.
Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service. And you can listen right here on this article page on Beet.TV
The #BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a Transunion company.
