How to Organize a Virtual Trade Show on the Metaverse Without Spending Money?

You have decided to gather your community around a large online event, including conferences or round tables and you are wondering how to do it?

You are probably asking yourself a lot of questions :

• Should I just use a free video conferencing software or subscribe to an expensive webinar license?

• Is a page on my community's favorite social network enough to launch the event or should I develop a dedicated website?

• Should I use a 3D virtual exhibition platform to boost my event?

• I keep hearing about metavers in the press... Is this the best way to organize a 3D event?

Organizing a virtual trade show can be a long, costly and complex process, which sometimes requires many weeks of setup... So why not simplify these steps by creating your virtual trade show, using an adapted metaverse platform? We explain you how to organize your event, as well as the method to create your virtual trade show, without spending any money.

The mix of video conferencing and social networking? Free but limited...

For a private online event or with a single conference thread, you can create a dedicated page on a social network such as www.facebook.fr or www.linkedin.com and couple it with a videoconferencing tool. This is far from a virtual show, but this technique allows you to gather your community without spending any money.

The webinar platform? Often a paid solution...

Many webinar platforms such as www.zoom.us can allow you to gather your community, bringing more interactivity than a classic video-conference. With a little preparation, you can for example divide your audience into several groups, depending on the interests of each participant. On the budget side, most platforms require a subscription that can quickly add up to several hundred euros. Define the features you find essential before choosing.

The generalist metaverse? Not very accessible...

You've probably heard of them. To name just three :

• Horizon Worlds is the metaverse of Facebook, newly Meta, which owns the Oculus company, the world leader in autonomous virtual reality headsets. Its star product, the Occulus Quest 2, is the key to discover this metaverse in full immersion.

• The Sandbox (https://www.sandbox.game) is a metaverse that has already seduced more than 17,000 virtual landowners, at the time of writing. Don't worry, if you want to invest in this metaverse to house your virtual show, it is still possible! There are still a few plots of virtual land that are negotiated at an average price of 10.000€ each.

• Decentraland (https://decentraland.org/) is a metaverse that Several big brands are already already using. We can mention for example Samsung and more recently JP Morgan.

These metavers are aimed at advanced users and require good technical skills, as well as a significant budget to be able to acquire a parcel, then prepare it to receive your event and its attendees. If you are not already a regular user of these platforms, you will need to spend some time to understand their respective workings.

The traditional virtual trade show? Plan a budget and a timeframe...

The traditional virtual trade show solutions and software offer to combine on the same platform, video-conference rooms and exhibition halls, in which you will find the exhibitors' stands. They are all based on the same fee-based approach:

• Make an appointment with a sales representative who will give you a demonstration.

• Then choose a paying formula and options, and contract with the editor. Generally count between 400 and 1000€ excluding taxes per stand.

• Then comes a phase of data collection of the exhibitors which can take various forms, but which must often be finished several weeks or months before the opening of the show.

• The production and configuration phase of the halls begins once all the exhibitor data has been consolidated. It lasts between 1 and 3 months depending on the size of the virtual exhibition and the availability of the platform editor's graphic design and development teams.

• The exhibition opens its doors on the scheduled dates and allows you to gather your community on a website or on a 3D metaverse.

The platforms and metaverses of virtual trade shows are differentiated by their navigation modes:

• Web navigation (Example: www.mafoirepro.com)

• 360° tour like Google street view (Example: www.vfairs.com)

• Real time 3D (Example: www.virbella.com)

We can also classify them according to their level of graphics which goes from the most minimalist to the most photorealistic.

Finally, some of these platforms require the installation of software to be used, which limits the ease of access for professionals who do not always have access to their workstations.

If you are not entirely convinced, there is an interesting alternative to these traditional platforms...

The instant virtual trade show platform! Quick to set up and free for the organizer!

This new generation of virtual trade show platform was invented by www.ultiplace.com to give the power back to the organizer and to fix the shortcomings of traditional virtual trade show platforms.

"The organizer creates his own virtual show in a few minutes."

The organizer himself creates his virtual trade show in a few minutes, by completing a form, without waiting and without spending a euro. By sharing a simple link, he can then invite exhibitors to create their stands and manage a large number of video conferences available live and in replay.

On the opening day, the 3D metaverse of your virtual exhibition is automatically created and allows you to welcome visitors from all over the world, without any cost, production time or software installation constraints.

The simplest, most economical and quickest virtual exhibition solution to implement.

Test it and create your own instant virtual trade show with Ultiplace.