Dubai may be something of a pioneer when it comes to the return of ‘in-person’ events, but Alf Lim, CEO of UAE-based start-up Events10x is confident virtual platforms are very much here to stay, albeit in a hybrid model.
The virtual events platform, a joint-venture between Norwegian-based myOnvent and Emirati investors, was set-up in the third quarter of last year and has hosted more than 100 events since September, with over 78,600 attendees, connecting over 2,800 exhibitors.
Lim told Arabian Business: “It’s a market that’s characterised with massive growth. Researchers and economists are estimating that the market’s going to grow by 23 percent over the next six years. By 2027 they estimate the online events market to be around $404 billion. Comparatively in 2019, pre-Covid, it was estimated to be about $78 billion.”
London-based Covid-19 unicorn, Hopin recently announced it had raised $400 million in Series C funding, which tripled its valuation in just a year of its launch.
Alf Lim, CEO of UAE-based start-up Events10x
The Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the majority of industries in some shape or form and the events sector is arguably one of the most prominent, with an initial blanket ban on in-person events on health and safety grounds, giving way to digital forums, which eventually moved towards the more common hybrid models found today, held under strict social distancing guidelines.
Dubai has been a great proponent of the latter, with events such as GITEX and Gulfood gathering an in-person audience of thousands as well as a strong online presence.
Indeed, the upcoming Arabian Travel Market (ATM) will be split between the live three-day event next month, followed by a three-day-long virtual format the following week.
Lim said: “The way we’ve looked at it is the world is going to go digital anyhow. There’s so many benefits to going digital. The way physical events are hosted today they have an incredible power, we’re not going to deny that, but they’re also very prohibitive.
“Travel is not as easy for everyone in this world as it is for certain layers of society. The associated cost and waste is significant – studies have found that something like 60 percent of waste produced at events end up in landfills and it’s a lot of single-use plastic cups and badges and things that have a very short lifespan.
“The carbon footprint of bringing everyone together, it’s enormous. The average three-day event with a global participation, they’re talking about 1,200 barrels of oil equivalent in carbon footprint.
“People are not saying we’re going to go back to normal, it’s going to be a new normal and the normal is going to be, as we see it, hybrid.”
Based in the Dubai International Financial Centre as part of the Fintech Hive initiative, Events10x has hosted a number of high profile events, including the UAE Ministry of Economy’s Annual Investment Meeting, the UAE Ministry of Tolerance’s International Humanitarian Summit, the International Trade Centre’s She Trades Global, and webinars and university fairs for the IDP Global.
Lim added that they are also helping two clients with virtual events as part of the six-month global Expo 2020 Dubai, which is set to open to the world on October 1.
He said: “We’re seeing new clients being added to our list. There’s a lot of interesting things in the pipeline.”
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