Readers Say Virtual Attendees Should Pay Fair Share to Access Conferences

With travel budgets and time out of the office at a premium these days, more associations than ever are making portions of their conferences and conventions available to “virtual” attendees. Most organizations are still tinkering with the right mix of content offerings and price points, but the majority of respondents (59.4 percent) to an unscientific poll of Association Adviser eNews readers indicated that those who attend their live events virtually should pay at least half of what regular attendees pay. In fact, one in five respondents (20.2%) believed virtual attendees should pay the full registration fee.

While nothing can replace the value of face-to-face interaction, learning sessions and professional development opportunities are becoming increasingly important to the association conference value proposition—live or virtual. Our benchmarking data and conversations with industry experts throughout today’s issue support this contention.

Dan Stevens, president of WorkerBee.TV, recommends “pricing at market” by factoring in the total cost of attending the event (registration, hotel, travel, etc.), dividing that total by the number of sessions you expect to attend there, and then discounting that number since you won’t have the networking experience that you would at a live event. WorkerBee provides online video content platforms for corporate and not-for-profit organizations.

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