The future evolution of webinars and online virtual conventions

Conventions, fairs, carnivals, convocations, assemblies, and every other kind of large meetings have always been part of the human experience. The main benefits from large scale assemblies come from shared experiences and what we now call "networking." Obviously, the emphasis of these gatherings has been from the purely social or religious to the purely commercial with a mixture of both ends of the spectrum in between the two extremes. As the pursuit of genealogy became popularized the first organized genealogy organization is the New England Historic Genealogical Society founded in 1845. The National Genealogical Society was founded in 1915. Sometime between these dates, it was likely that the first genealogy conferences of members and other interested people were held. 

It is estimated that there are over 30,000 conferences held each year around the world. There is a website that tries to keep track of all the genealogy conferences. It is called ConferenceKeeper.org and it lists a lot of conferences. As I reviewed the list of upcoming conferences, I noted that the pandemic has taken its toll. Almost every conference listed had either changed from in-person to virtual or been canceled for this year. Of course, this includes the upcoming RootsTech Connect conference. Which will be held virtually from the 25 to the 27th of February in 2021. 

The virtualization of all these conferences opens a question about the long-term effects of what would seem to be a temporary situation. Think of all the huge convention centers and hotels that will be affected by the closing down of conferences all around the world. 

In the case of RootsTech, over 17,000 people signed up for the free virtual conference in the first 24 hours after its announcement. I expect that the number of virtual attendees will vastly eclipse any of the total numbers of in-person attendance. So, the question is if this upcoming conference has a huge attendance, why would they go back to the expense, etc. of a live, in-person conference? 

I spend hours each week online virtually talking to people making presentations, teaching classes, or attending meetings. I save a huge amount of time that I previously spent traveling and getting ready to travel. The main problem before the pandemic was that very few people were familiar with or comfortable with talking and meeting online. That barrier has now, to some extent, disappeared. I talk to people who are using a smartphone, a tablet, or sitting at a desktop computer. Once you get over the novelty of the situation, you can almost ignore the interface. We have been able to meet as family groups which never took place before the pandemic. 

Granted, I have been teaching webinars for years. I have also been teaching in-person classes for most of my life starting with substitute teaching during my years at the University of Utah now almost fifty years ago. There is an interesting comparison between my webinars and my live classes. I am guessing one of the largest in-person classes I taught was one year at RootsTech with over 3000 people in the conference hall. However, this number is less than impressive when one of my webinars has now been viewed over 57,000 times and one recent Facebook Live broadcast for MyHeritage.com had over 17,000 views almost immediately and now has over 21,400 views as of the date of this post. 

My question is this. Which is more productive of my time? Teaching 1 to 30 or so people in a live class or presenting the same class online to thousands of people with residual viewings into the tens of thousands. 

Now let's expand that to the present virtual genealogy conferences. If the idea of having a conference such as RootsTech is to reach as many people as possible, doesn't it seem logical to have a virtual conference rather than going to the huge expense of an in-person conference? Are there enough additional benefits from meeting in person to make it worth the time and expense? Think of Amazon selling food. Think of Walmart delivering food. Think of the time and expense. Hmm.