How to boost membership? Go virtual!
Membership by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free
Virtual conferences often attract more attendees
For most associations, their annual conference is their greatest tool for bringing and keeping members in the organization. It turns out that virtual conferences—with their lower reg fees and lack of travel costs—typically attract far more people than in-person conferences. Even better, the people who are suddenly able to attend are often more marginalized: (a) early-career professionals who can’t afford to fly and stay in a hotel, (b) parents (mostly mothers) of young children who can’t get away, and (c) people with disabilities who have mobility challenges.
Let’s take a look at some of the evidence for this.
Pandemic Era conferences saw big increases
The chart above shows that when these 22 associations went virtual in 2020, they typically saw increased attendance. This was likely due to several factors:
Zero travel costs made attendance much more affordable
Some of these conferences were offered for free
People were working from home, so may have had more time and opportunity to attend
Most people had not experienced a virtual conference yet, so may have been curious to try it
A very large jump over prior years
Many of the conferences shown above didn’t experience a small increase in attendance when held virtually. They saw a very large jump.
How about since the pandemic?
Unfortunately, little research has been published on virtual conference attendance in recent years. We do have data from one of our partners, the Visitor Studies Association (VSA), which shows that virtual consistently outperformed in-person conference attendance.
Notice the first-timers to VSA: There are many more of them, and a larger percentage of them, at the virtual conferences than at the in-person conferences. In other words, virtual doesn’t just attract people who tend to sit-out the in-person conferences, but rather may be a way to “broaden the tent” of an association’s membership.
Are your members willing to go virtual?
Some association leaders are understandably cautious about holding a virtual conference, even one that is well designed with state-of-the-art platforms, engaging activities, and helpful social norms. But the thing to remember when surveying association members is that you aren’t talking to the people who aren’t coming to the in-person conference because they cannot afford it or it’s too difficult to attend. Huge selection effect. There’s very limited data available after the pandemic comparing motivations to attend virtual and in-person conferences, but the American Sociological Association did publish a study on this topic. Surveying 3,000 ASA members, they found that cost is the single largest barrier to in-person conference attendance:
72% of the over 3,000 ASA respondents said that cost is the biggest barrier to attending the in-person conference, while only 13% said cost was a barrier for virtual meetings. Cost of in-person conferences was particularly problematic for BIPOC members, early-career professionals, students, part-timers, and unemployed members.
69% said that attending the ASA conference is contingent on securing funding (partial or full) from their employer/educational institution, and this is particularly true for BIPOC members and those at four-year colleges.
After reading a list of possible barriers with attending conferences, 19% of respondents said there were no barriers to attending virtual conferences, while only 5% said there were no barriers to attending in-person meetings.
This survey went out to the membership; members don’t even include the folks who would join the ASA if they could afford to attend the conference. In summary, a survey of over 3,000 members of a large academic association shows that cost is a major barrier to attending in-person, but not virtual, conferences. And this barrier hits marginalized members more than privileged ones. Although respondents are motivated by the opportunity to network, they see that playing out at in-person conferences rather than virtual ones. And finally, Zoom fatigue is the most often cited complaint about virtual conferences. Together, we design virtual conferences that provide ample opportunities for comfortable networking, and we can minimize fatigue while doing it.
Alternating between virtual and in-person
We advocate for alternating between virtual and in-person conference formats, just like VSA and ASA have decided to do. Alternating offers many benefits of both. The trick is to forge connections among attendees across the years, weaving together the community. By offering small virtual events throughout the year between the in-person and virtual conferences, associations can grow their membership and the community within it. At the Clean Conferencing Institute, we’re working with partners like VSA to to stitch together alternating conference formats, holding onto the larger groups attracted to the virtual while offering the committed groups an in-person experience half as often.
Won’t you join us?
Sue Allen and Josh Gutwill are the Co-Directors of the Clean Conferencing Institute. If you’d like to support the non-profit Clean Conferencing Institute, please consider clicking on the Donate button at the top of the page.