With in-person events getting ready to make a grand re-entrance, some of the large event platforms are hellbent on keeping the virtual energy flowing.

Surreal, a newcomer to the scene, is making a stunning debut this week. The platform, built on Epic Games’s Unreal Engine, promises avatar-driven, sophisticated venues and a social-first mentality. 

On March 23rd head to Hublio’s Restart Party featuring 2 days of virtual events celebrations with a kickoff by Guy Kawasaki, David Pogue, events maven Will Curran, and AWS events goddess Gianna Gaudini.

Don’t underestimate this juggernaut. Roblox went public as a collaborative game destination, but it’s so much more. Just ask Lil Nas X and Roblox CEO Craig Donato about how their virtual event worked out and expect to see future Roblox events.  

Over at Brella it’s The Virtual ShakeUp, featuring our own Board of Advisors member Jim Louderback along with Brella execs and Skift founder Rafat Ali. 

Here’s a question for you … with companies like Skift and HopIn and 25,000 other certified event companies all in Great Britain, has it become the event-tech hub of the world? 

• Fewer speakers, shorter durations for talks
• Mixed-lengths for sessions
• Multilingual access
• Constant audience polling for sentiment and engagement
• More expensive video production
• Prizes for paying attention 
• 365/day engagement
• Tiered pricing with VIP levels

• Walmart figures out shopping events on TikTok 
• Cadbury’s Easter Hunt Goes Virtual 
• Seriously?  Mark Zuckerberg touts smart glasses as the way to combat climate change. 
• Peter Evans is pretty sharp. Here’s his take on his last month’s visit to VEG and how it fits into the platform-economy
• Here’s my take on the crazy world of non-fungible tokens, Beeples, and why a new generation, brought up on digital collectibles is having a field day.