2015 Predictions: Reality Check

Last December, we pulled out our crystal ball and called out a couple trends we thought would make a big impact in 2015. Now it's time to take a look back and see how well our predictions fared.[Tweet "A look back at how well our 2015 event predictions fared. #GovEventsBlog"]

• Virtual events - We predicted that virtual events would grow due to the tight budgets for travel and training. While webinars continued to be popular mediums for delivering training and some events looked into hybrid formats, there was not a huge jump in virtual events, but they held steady. In fact, we saw in-person attendance increase this year. Prediction Grade: C+
• Smaller Events - This prediction looked at the trend of having more localized/specialized smaller events as opposed to (or in addition to) large conferences. Of all the events posted on our site last year, one quarter would be considered small. While the large, traditional conferences are seeing an uptick in attendance and interest, there is still a huge market for small, targeted events. Grade: B
• Big Data - We thought 2015 would be the year of Big Data-focused events, but with a number of high profile data breaches in government, cybersecurity remained the top priority.[Tweet "We thought 2015 would be the year of Big Data-focused events. #GovEventsBlog"] However, within those cyber events there was a lot of discussion about how Big Data can be used to prevent and detect breaches. Big Data events were strong in terms of number of events and its #3 rank in top search terms on the GovEvents site behind "cybersecurity" and "job fair". Grade: B
• Attracting Millennials - We have seen changes in the federal meeting space that are both keeping up with the times and meeting the needs of Millennials. From more active social media presence to photo backdrops to promote event selfie sharing to changing up traditional agendas, we see events looking for ways to differentiate themselves to draw audiences of all ages. Grade: C+

[Tweet "Our 2015 government event predictions faired pretty well. #GovEventsBlog"]Our 2015 government event predictions faired pretty well. In a future post we'll lay out our thoughts for what 2016 may look like for federal events.