The first Tissue World Digital Days hailed a success
Virtual global gathering eclipsed expectations, drawing over a thousand attendees to five live and pre-recorded online sessions last month
Having already postponed Tissue World Miami 2020 from its original April dates to November, and with the coronavirus pandemic continuing to curtail international travel and in-person meetings, the event’s organisers, Informa Markets took the decision to bravely enter the new world of virtual event planning and production.
Rather than delay until 2022 an event that typically draws attendees, participants and exhibitors from around the world to Miami, Informa Markets embraced the virtual meeting trend, creating Tissue World Digital Days, and the results were, by all accounts, a resounding success.
The three-day event opened on November 11 with of five live online sessions featuring 44 speakers, moderators and panellists. Complementing the live webinars, were a number of pre-recorded sessions. Despite — or perhaps because of — its virtual nature, Tissue World Digital Days drew 44 speakers and presenters from several countries and registrants from 97 countries across the globe.
Informa Markets deputy event director, Agnes Gehot said: “The feedback we have received from attendees, exhibitors and speakers has been overwhelmingly positive. We also have learned anecdotally that attendees and exhibitors were able to accomplish some business objectives in one-to-one virtual meetings and networking sessions.
“While virtual events will never be a completely satisfactory replacement for in-person gatherings, we are extremely pleased that we were able to attract more participants than would have been able to travel to Miami for Tissue World.”
Tissue World Miami is one of five global events in the Tissue World portfolio, and also postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic were Tissue & Paper Bangkok 2020 and Tissue World Istanbul 2020. To compensate for this, Tissue World Digital Days included live webinars focused on southeast Asia, Turkey and Latin America.
The next Tissue World Miami is scheduled to take place March 16-18, 2022. Tissue & Paper Bangkok is planned for June 16-18, 2021; and Tissue World Düsseldorf is set for for September 21-23, 2021. New dates for Tissue World shows in Istanbul, Turkey; and São Paolo, Brazil; will be announced soon.