We frequently get asked about how RingCentral Events is different from other applications, so I wanted to jot out a few higher-level notes based on what we’ve heard from our users.
In general, RingCentral Events is a virtual venue built for connecting people, and flexible to fit any kind of event. To take it a step further, there are five key differences between RingCentral Events and video conferencing software, meeting or webinar tools, and other event platforms that are available.
1. Attendees connect in a meaningful way.
The bread and butter of RingCentral Events is how you can keep your attendees, sponsors, and speakers fully engaged throughout the platform.
Just like an in-person gathering, people can experience the same live connections and personal interactions that make events so special. It’s what we focused on when we first started building RingCentral Events.
Inside RingCentral Events, attendees aren’t limited to exchanging DMs via chat. RingCentral Events’ Networking is one of the most unique experiences because it mimics the ability for people to have serendipitous conversations, such as at the coffee bar or in the hallway. It’s a connection discovery tool that brings a fun and personal experience to your event.
RingCentral Events pairs two people over a one-on-one video call at a la speed networking and lets them exchange contact information just like virtual business cards if they choose. Attendees love getting the summary of their new connections after an event for easy following up. In fact, one time, an attendee booked over 100 follow up meetings from one event on RingCentral Events!
You can also configure your Networking and Session rules to match people based on ticket type, which is a great opportunity to charge more for tickets at different tiers. Perfect if you want VIP tickets to get matched with speakers or CEOs, or marketing hiring managers to get matched with people looking for a marketing role.
Attendees can also create their own private one-on-one video calls if they want to connect with someone directly they met in one of the rooms or through the event chat.
In addition to delighting your attendees (people truly rave about the networking), you’ll also get data on the number of connections made and who connected with who.
2. RingCentral Events is an all-in-one platform, and it’s scalable.
RingCentral Events is the first all-in-one live online events platform where attendees can learn, interact, and connect with people from anywhere in the world. It works great for a 50-person meetup, a 500-person team meeting, or a 50,000 person conference (and everything in between). 2020 hasn’t even wrapped and we’ve already empowered over 53,000 event organizers to drive over 3.7M event registrations. What’s especially cool is the range of types of events that find value in the different features to make their online events more personal and engaging.
- Big conference? You might geek out over our deeper post-event reporting and valuable customer insights across the marketing funnel. A big piece of virtual conferences is sponsorship revenue, so we published a blueprint of how one company brought in $220,000 in sponsor revenue from one event hosted on RingCentral Events.
- Gala event? For Madeline Raithel, Event Manager for the Northern California ILEA (International Live Events Association) chapter’s virtual gala the attendee feedback that was most important was how smooth all the transitions were. Because they weren’t limited to one venue or other restrictions, the entertainment was over the top amazing. “We could incorporate silks, jazz bands, cooking demos, cocktail recipes, and so much more!” She said, “People were blown away with how much we could actually incorporate.”
- Company retreat? Netguru first used RingCentral Events for their Disruption Forum Fintech NYC event in March, so when they were about to postpone their annual internal conference & retreat for employees in September, they realized they could make it happen online. They rebranded their Burning Minds 2020 retreat to Burning Minds Together From Home and brought over 500 employees together with 3 stages, 45 speakers, 30 presentations and lightning talks, and 6 workshops. It worked so well their employer branding team also ended up using RingCentral Events for their first Netguru Hangout Mobile, an online meetup for mobile developers, and they’ve referred the platform to 40+ different companies.
3. Your event can have a Backstage, Expo booths, and multiple rooms to explore.
Ashley Louise, Co-Founder of non-profit Ladies Get Paid said, “We used RingCentral Events for Get Money, Get Paid because we didn’t want to mess with
transitions!” Their event included multiple speakers moving in and out throughout their event program, and they loved the dedicated “green room” to queue everyone up when they were ready to go on screen. Speakers love getting invited to participate in events on RingCentral Events because all they have to do is “ask to share audio and video” and you’ll see their profile pop up in the moderation queue to add or remove them to the stream.
RingCentral Events users also enjoy about the “choose-your-own-adventure” style experience that organizers can create for their attendees. Unlike a webinar or video conference (which has only one main video and potentially breakout rooms), the options on RingCentral Events are limitless since almost everything is customizable. In addition to the unlimited breakout rooms, you can really flex your creativity with how you organize your Expo floor and introduce experiences such as games, exhibits, on-demand content, and more.
4. Your venue, your own branded experience.
RingCentral Events has ample branding space so your virtual venue is completely yours to craft the experience and keep your brand top of mind. You can configure the different rooms within your event (and which are meant to be interactive and collaborative or on-demand), with various options for your attendees on how they connect, network, and share content. When you set up your Stage (or multiple Stages), Expo, and unlimited types of rooms your brand is front and center throughout. RingCentral Events’ tiering, content opportunities, lead generation and live data analytics on how your attendees are engaging with your event.
“We were thrilled to partner with RingCentral Events this year for The Atlantic Festival. RingCentral Events’ platform was a wonderful forum for our audience to engage with one another and with us throughout our event [which was an] excellent user experience for us and our audience.” – Aretae Wyler, Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel at Atlantic Media
5. We started with virtual. Pre-pandemic.
This is one of the most important differentiators, and the reason we’ve seen such scale and volume of events this year. Some companies pivoted over the last few months, adding features relevant to virtual events only after the shift happened. Others didn’t exist until everyone was thrown into virtual overnight, and sprung up recently as a reactionary result. RingCentral Events created an innovative platform for virtual events back in 2019, giving the industry a new people-first approach to digital gatherings. This included an intuitive UX for both attendees and organizers and making it easy for organizers to pair great content with the rich interactions and engagements people love to experience at an offline event.
Bottom line, when you host your event, you’re providing more than an online event. You’re opening the doors to a virtual venue experience, designed to delight your guests, simplified for your speakers, and optimized for your marketing efforts and sponsors.
The question is, what event will you organize next?
Originally published Sep 01, 2022, updated Oct 27, 2023
