12,500 eventprofs gather virtually to celebrate #GMID20

GMID Goes Virtual rallied 12,500 professionals from over 30 countries, 14 April, to commemorate Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID) and spread hope and positivity in an event industry that is highly affected by Covid-19. The virtual meet-up was also an attempt to create the largest audience for a live-stream conference. The event, called GMID Goes Virtual, was planned as an alternative way for professionals from around the globe to come together and raise the collective voice of the events and hospitality community. Global Meetings Industry Day is an initiative designed by the Meetings Mean Business (MMB) campaign to be an international forum for advocacy, awareness, and celebration for the meetings and events industry. The idea to attempt the record came from Calgary-based Anh Nguyen, Principal and Founder of Spark Event Management. She wanted to provide a platform to share a message of resilience with industry peers and some long hours were spent consolidating this project to show that the events community stands together, even when apart. An innovative and engaging 30-minute virtual experience was co-hosted by Jennifer Spear and Miguel Neves. Using the audience interaction tool Slido, attendees engaged in polls that reflected the status of events, and promoted messages of support and encouragement as the industry plans ahead for recovery. GMID Goes Virtual became the most interactive event in Slido history with over 8,800 people participating and 46,790 votes submitted. Many companies and industry associations donated their time and resources to the success of the event. Michael Levesque, CEO of Resolve Collaboration, an organisation specialised in digital events and responsible for the tech implementation of GMID Goes Virtual, said that “working on the GMIDGoesVirtual team was an incredibly challenging project. Our team worked to pull together disparate technology platforms into a single unified solution to help break a world record attempt. We did it with very little advance preparation, a constantly evolving agenda and with our team fully deployed at home offices. Resolve Collaboration is delighted that we were part of making history.” “Av Strategies, a national full-service audio-visual company in Canada, was proud to have been a part of the technical team that made the event happen using their webcasting network services,” said Derek Orr Calgary Branch Manager, Av Strategies. Another key collaborator for the event was snöball Influencer Marketing. Rachel Stephan, their Event Marketing Strategist added that, “in this time of uncertainty, working together with an amazing group of event professionals who united to create something magical, uplifts her spirits. “It was a natural fit to put the power of snöball to do what it was built to do: amplify voices and mobilise individuals to become brand ambassadors and influencers.” Miguel Neves, international speaker on digital engagement strategy and one of the moderators of GMID Goes Virtual borrowed from Margaret Mead to say, “You should never doubt what a small group of thoughtful, committed event professionals can do.” Looking to the Future Nguyen added: “Regardless of what happens after the event, record or no record, we should be so proud to work in this industry. There is absolutely no doubt that when the time comes, we will be back – stronger than ever and ready to take on whatever awaits us on the other side.” #GMIDGOESVIRTUAL