Kayleigh Barber of Digiday interviewed tech news site VentureBeat vice president of strategic partnerships Gina Joseph on how it kept sponsorship revenue when its events went online.
Barber writes, “The company’s annual GameBeat Summit 2020 was set to take place at the end of the month in Los Angeles and as the pandemic grew more severe, more and more precautions were put in place to keep guests safe. Eventually, however, it became illegal to hold events at all and just three weeks ahead of showtime, vp of strategic partnerships Gina Joseph said her team started adapting the event to be entirely virtual.
“With 50% of the company’s revenue coming from events, Joseph said that events in their virtual form are still a significant part of the business strategy.
“Joseph said that not only was her team able to hang onto all of the more than 120 speakers and keep the more than 50 sessions on the schedule for GameBeat, but all of the sponsors stayed locked in as well. The sales team was even able to sign additional partnerships leading up to the summit.
“GameBeat Summit 2020 ended up bringing in more money from its virtual iteration than it did as its in-person version in 2019, she said. This was not only due to a higher profit margin, but also due to the fact that her team was able to keep sponsorships prices consistent with the summit’s original in-person format.”
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