What are best practices for developing an on-site and remote command center for AV and staff to produce a virtual event? A handful of event professionals recently shared their ideas on PCMA’s Catalyst forum.

What a mentorship program for global women business leaders and an awards program at New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center have in common.

“Necessity” is a mild way to describe the impetus for invention brought by COVID-19. We’ve learned in 2020 that creativity is, as business strategist Natalie Nixon argues, “incredibly practical and crucial to survival” — in the business events industry especially, where the pandemic has forced us to go digital or go dark.

Beth Surmont, CAE, CMP, director of experience design at 360 Live Media, reflects on what she’s learned about virtual events.

Now that the world has gotten used to conducting business virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, business travel could be permanently reduced by as much as 36 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal’s travel reporter and columnist. But conventions and trade shows may be the exception.

Kate Vitasek, an expert on collaborative business relationships, wants to help Convening Leaders participants rethink their transactional approach to contracts so they “co-create instead of negotiate” — and start fresh for a post-pandemic world.

As gatherings move indoors during the winter months, MIT researchers have created a tool that helps people determine the risk of COVID-19 transmission based on a number of factors.

Held last month in Sydney, PCMA’s Convening Asia Pacific: Global Recovery Forum provides a few lessons in hybrid event experience design that prioritize safety for in-person attendees and interactivity for digital participants.

In early November, Marriott International launched its “Connect with Confidence” hybrid event series to help event professionals experience the future of meetings.

Food and culture tours — both live and virtual — can make complicated and uncomfortable history lessons much easier to digest.

To meet the evolving needs of the business events industry in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, convention centers and other meeting venues are adding broadcast studios to their list of options for event producers.

Large digital meetings have scale, while smaller in-person meetings can deliver serendipity. Hybrid meetings of the future have potential to deliver both, said futurist Mark Pesce.