With Events, Zoom sets off on the assault on virtual events

Since the explosion of the health crisis, the organization and management of face-to-face events has become very complicated. While the return to life in this area is still uncertain, online protests have escalated. A niche in which the videoconferencing specialist Zoom is rushing with its latest Events solution, expected for this summer. The announcement comes as the publisher indicated that 52% of its US users intend to attend both physical and virtual events in the coming months.

“Zoom Events will allow you to easily create, host and manage your online experience,” announces in a blog post from the publisher. Concretely, Events will be used to create an events hub, manage ticketing and registration and use a dashboard to manage user access. In addition, Events will offer a system for participants to come into contact with during an event and also statistics (uses, attendance, etc.). The platform is designed to organize both simple and ambitious online events (summits over several days for example) and manage simultaneous sessions taking place in the same conference. Virtual waiting rooms will also be offered.

Cisco and Microsoft in ambush

This is not the publisher’s first foray into the world of events with the solution OnZoom had launched the solution. But this offer turned out to be much more limited and will ultimately be integrated into Events. “For anyone who already uses OnZoom, once Events launches, it will replace it and continue to allow individuals to host events and bill for tickets,” the provider explains.

Zoom Events will have a long way to go to gain a foothold in the online event management market, which is very different from that of the simple web conferencing tool. In this niche, in fact, players such as Cisco (with Socio Labs) or even Microsoft (with Teams now capable of accommodating up to 10,000 people) are also in line so as not to play simple roles as extras.