Online Events—How Far Have You Tried?

Online Events—How Far Have You Tried?

Hello, this is Chris & Partners. 😊 Last year and this year, due to COVID-19, contactless remote work and online classes are now becoming routine. Many people complain of fatigue from static online meetings—how about taking part in active and varied virtual events? In this post we'll introduce various untact/virtual events! 🎈

Running events 🏃🏻‍♂️

The virtual event most often held by various local governments, companies, and organizations is exactly the running event.

Incheon, Gyeongju, Daegu, Jeju, and various other local governments have directly hosted, and plan to host, marathon events for regional promotion and for local residents worn out by COVID-19. The Daegu International Marathon, held throughout April, is run as the world's first contactless race, it's said; it's run in three parts—Elite, Masters, and Plogging (jogging while picking up trash)—and the Elite division had 245 people from 14 countries apply, including about 70 domestic athletes and others from Ethiopia, Kenya, the US, Japan, Morocco, and more, it's said.

Showing steady interest in running—including its own running app and events—Nike held a virtual race in collaboration with JTBC. Besides this, virtual marathon/running events were held in various places, such as Mercedes-Benz, World Vision, and the Sohn Kee-chung Peace Marathon. As they were virtual events, they ran in a format where you download a free or designated app and submit the distance you walked as verification, or complete a designated distance. Some of the local governments, companies, and organizations that ran the events donated event proceeds to support education costs for vulnerable children and youth, COVID-19 relief, and more, and heartwarming scenes were also witnessed.

This coming May, various running events are slated to be held—World Vision's ‘Global 6K for Water Virtual Run,’ The North Face's ‘2021 Gangwon Virtual Race,’ ASICS's ‘2021 ASICS Seoul Virtual Run,’ and more—so if you're interested, don't miss them and take part! 🏃🏻‍♂️

Cycling events 🚴🏻‍♀️

Cycling events are also being held contactless/virtually.

Most events run as non-competitive events, in a format where you complete a given course within a given period and upload or send a verification photo. As with running events, most are run using a designated app. Representative examples include Boeun-gun's ‘2020 Run to Boeun’ and the Incheon Ilbo-organized ‘Gyeonggi Green Virtual Race,’ and there are the ‘2021 Hoengseong Virtual Challenge’ held on the 9th and the ‘Daejeon Bike Festival 2021 Untact Challenge’ slated for May.

Chris & Partners also held such a virtual cycling event. It was the virtual cycling competition hosted by the Embassy of Colombia in Korea, held this past November 2020, ‘Feel the Cycling with NAIRO’! This competition, joined by Nairo Quintana, a Colombian winner of international cycling competitions, was run through a collaboration with the cycling & fitness app BKOOL so that, escaping the environmental restrictions caused by COVID-19, participants could compete in real time with people around the world. Chris & Partners carried out marketing and promotion for Korean participants, ranking the Korean participants who crossed the finish line in real time and giving out prizes. As a result of focusing on effective digital marketing and close communication with participants, this competition won a hot response from cyclists at home and abroad, and as a result it achieved great success, with cyclists from about 10 countries and about 200 people taking part.

Book fairs 📚

An event those of you who love reading and enjoy visiting independent bookstores will have heard of at least once is exactly the Seoul Art Book Fair ‘Unlimited Edition.’ The ‘Unlimited Edition’ event, where independent-publishing creators who'd been working in their own places gather once a year, can be called Korea's largest independent-publication festival; since it showcases not only books but also various goods, it's called a steadily loved, ‘hot’ and ‘hip’ festival.

This event too was held untact in 2020 under the name ‘Unlimited Edition at Home.’ The pre-built website and content received praise from participants. The ‘Unlimited Edition’ event is famous for having many books with pretty cover designs and unique content; it lined up such various book covers on the first screen and set it so that, each time you press refresh, the listing order changes randomly. Also, it set things up so you could search by setting a sort criterioncover, participating team, title, keyword, custom poster— according to five criteria—striving to satisfy the criteria of various people.

To soothe the regret of an offline event, it set things up so you could put the books you want in a wishlist, arrange them freely, then capture and download the image. Thanks to this, verification shots with the hashtag #UnlimitedEdition on social media reached 13,000—even though it was an online event, the participants' enthusiasm was tremendous, right? Also, for participants disappointed they couldn't visit each publisher's booth in person, it unveiled custom posters that adapted the official poster to bring out each publisher's individuality, drawing many people's eyes.

Image and content reference source: Unlimited Edition 12 website exploration log

Regional festivals 🎭

The Boryeong Mud Festival and the Bonghwa Sweetfish Festival—famous regional festivals you've probably heard of somewhere; in 2020, such regional festivals were also held untact. Just how were participatory festivals held online?

First, let's look at the Boryeong Mud Festival. The Boryeong Mud Festival, run with the goal of making participants feel as if they'd gone to the festival site and smeared on mud—even without going to the site or smearing mud all over—was run with 11 pieces of content across 4 fields. Through advance application it provided a ‘stay-at-home mud experience kit’ so people could enjoy a vivid mud experience even at home and film a verification video to enter a contest. It also held a Remember Mud Festival using photos, videos, and more that participants took at the Boryeong Mud Festival from the 1st in 1998 to the 22nd in 2019. A mud festival you enjoy through an experience kit while watching the event on YouTube Live at home without going to the mud festival in person—isn't it fresh?

Next is the Bonghwa Sweetfish Festival. The Sweetfish Festival was also held via YouTube Live—a Bonghwa Sweetfish Festival drawing online art contest, a Take Care of the Sweetfish! Recipe Contest where you receive sweetfish by delivery, cook it with your own creative recipe, and enter with a photo and recipe of the finished work, and photo and video contests from the 21 years of the Bonghwa Sweetfish Festival—through such colorful events, it let people enjoy a lively festival scene even at home. Also, during the festival it sold sweetfish via drive-through, not betraying the expectations of participants looking forward to Bonghwa sweetfish.

We looked together at the various online (untact)/virtual events being held—how was it? Besides these, exhibitions, film festivals, fashion shows, flower viewing, idol-group fan signings, and even sports days are being held online! It seems online events aren't simply a replacement for offline events but are establishing themselves as another new event format and culture.

Recently many companies and organizations are also holding various events online—exhibitions, events, webinars, and more. Various online events—where to start planning and how to plan them seems daunting, right? 😥 In such times, partner with us, Chris & Partners, with solid skills honed through various online-event experience and the flexibility to respond in many situations! 🤝

Prepare a satisfying event with Chris & Partners, a professional platform ready for in-person/contactless meetings, hybrid/virtual events, and digital marketing. 😉