Join us for a casual interview with our partners and top clientes where we will talk about virtual event experiences, insights and challenges that they face.
Kopernico: Experts in corporate events and team building activities
Kopérnico and Virtway started working together in early 2020. Despite being originally focused on in-person events and activities, Kopérnico was quick to adjust and create events virtually. With an extrememly creative team, they have created from scratch some of our top virtual activities, like Virtual Cluedo and other escape rooms.
Why have you chosen 3D events with avatars over live streaming web events? What has been the added value of this format?
A virtual job fair hosted by Kopernico that was originally supposed to take place in-person in Spain.
What we like the most about Virtway is that you can have an experience similar to a physical event. You can land in a welcome lobby where you meet with your colleagues and have group and informal conversations, access an auditorium where hundreds of people can attend a lecture, divide into teams between the different workrooms, and finish the evening by enjoying a team building activity with your coworkers.
A videocall with dozens or hundreds of people does not does not offer the same feeling of connection — there is no interaction between the participants. But, in Virtway, there is the concept of distance, therefore you can maintain a conversation with the people next to you, while other several conversations arise simultaneously in the scene without interrupting yours. This is a very powerful concept for networking or for organizing conferences where hundreds of exhibitors can set their stands, while millions of participants can also attend. Each event we learn and debrief how to perfect these interactions to fuel so we can see how attendees reunite in Virtway, moving around in groups of friends, talking, and commenting over what they see, the same as they would do in a physical event.
And all this can be achieved without excluding videostreaming or breakout video chats, as, if desired, lecturers can talk while having their image broadcasted on one of the screens available in the scene.
Although our technology is already an attractive element, how do you differentiate yourselves in the market?
As it happens in physical congresses or events, we have always considered our main strength to be our capacity to adapt to the needs of each client and deliver to their individual goals. In Kopérnico, we are real producers, we get out hands dirty. If you ask for an event with Kopérnico, you know that our team is going to directly organize it, thus allowing us to continuously create new ideas with our clients while literally building in 3D space from what we’ve already learned from working with some of the worlds largest and most innovative companies. We work hard to get to know our clients and adapt to them.
Within Virtway, we have created several team building activities such as Cluedo, TV-inspired quiz shows and personalized escape rooms. Virtway is highly versatile, with ideas and effort you can create anything. From time to time, we incorporate new activities and solutions.
Which of your services are most enjoyed by your clients?
Our clients are always greatly surprised by the virtual conferences, before attending one, they cannot imagine how real these events feel within Virtway. They are a huge success. Among the activities, the most demanded are teambuilding and role-playing games, which are also the one we most enjoyed developing. Listening to the people laughing with their coworkers while having a good time is really motivating, especially in a situation like the one we are living in.
How do event assistants react? Do they have a hard time adapting to the technology?
We make sure people see how easy it is to use through onboarding sessions to dispel concerns and flatten the learning curve. Once people see their colleagues using the software and having fun while they do, adaption is quick.
It depends on the company’s profile really. For example, tech company employees are comfortable with using the platform from the beginning , and the same goes for younger generations. If the clients come from a non-technological environment or the average age is higher, they expect it to be hard to use, but this feeling disappears from the first minute. Anyone can move and talk within Virtway, without any previous knowledge. From the moment people appear in the scene and they start talking with their colleagues, all insecurities disappear, and they immediately enjoy the event. And, if anyone has any difficulty, our team is always present to give full support to event participants.
What is your opinion about this type of event post-pandemic?
We are already working with Virtway on events combining virtual worlds with in-person virtual events.
As everyone else, we also cannot wait to meet again with our friends and hug each other. After the pandemic, physical events will come back and we will resume our previous way of life, AND we will continue to use all the new tools we’ve learned to deploy in 2020. We have seen that a half-hour meeting with a client or a coworker from other headquarters can be done virtually, and the experience is really similar, as if we were sitting at their desk, but without losing any time transporting there and being able to reschedule a meeting 15 minutes before without affecting anyone.
We opt for hybrid events. You can organize a conference in Madrid with 100 exhibitors, in which you expect 5.000 attendees and, at the same time, reach another 10.000 clients from anywhere in the world, who would not have come to your event otherwise. Thus we can have three times more clients and triple the chances of success for your exhibitors, beyond what you can attract to one city. We know companies, with hundreds of sales representatives distributed around Spain, who carried out sales meetings to which only a few could attend due to costs and operability, but who can now organize hybrid events and trainings in which all their sales network can participate.
