The News: RingCentral Inc., a leader in global enterprise cloud communications, has announced the launch of RingCentral Events, an integrated solution for managing virtual, onsite, and hybrid events. Previously known as Hopin Events, RingCentral Events promises an immersive, personalized event experience, scaling to accommodate over 100,000 attendees. This platform is a new chapter in business engagement, offering a suite of services, including native registration, analytics, mobile app, check-in, badge printing, and lead retrieval. The full press release is available on the RingCentral website.
One Platform for Virtual and Physical Conferencing
Analyst Take: This strategic move by RingCentral heralds a significant shift in the event management industry, offering a seamless, AI-infused experience that represents the future in how businesses conduct and engage with events. The one-two punch of addressing the unique needs of hybrid (in-person and online virtual events) in a single platform and including a path forward for AI capabilities indicates a future where event organization and participation are further streamlined, offering enriched interactive possibilities and data-driven insights that could redefine attendee engagement.
One Platform for Virtual, Onsite, and Hybrid Events
RingCentral Events is a natural extension of the RingCentral video suite of products, including RingCentral Video, RingCentral Rooms, and RingCentral Webinar. Designed to cater to virtual, onsite, and hybrid events, RingCentral Events offers a seamless and highly personalized user experience that can scale to support over 100,000 attendees, marking it as a significant advancement in the event management space.
Its comprehensive feature set includes native registration, analytics, mobile apps, check-in systems, badge printing, and lead retrieval, all integrated into a single platform. Once the event starts, you can offer an online venue that includes “locations” that can be accessed by either in-person or virtual attendees, including:
- Reception – the welcome reception area where you can find the event description and schedule
- Stage – think of this as the main stage or keynotes where all attendees join and watch
- Sessions – concurrent sessions that can be used for different tracks or topics during the event; think of this as when you have to decide between multiple sessions happening at the same time
- Network – find other attendees and establish connections; there is also a speed networking option to meet random attendees 1:1
- Expo – sponsors and exhibitors can set up their virtual booths with resources to promote their brand or products; if the event does not have sponsors, you can choose to use this area as a resource center
- Replay – where recorded sessions are uploaded for attendees to watch later
Optimizing Event Management with AI and Scalability
Two standout specifications for RingCentral Events are its scalability and how RingCentral plans to introduce AI into the entire fabric of the offering. Beyond the massive number of attendees the platform can support (100,000 at its launch), RingCentral Events offers ready-made templates for quick event setup and AI-powered content creation to save time. To further enhance the platform’s quick and easy scalability, RingCentral Events is available with a full marketplace of event app integrations, such as Marketo, HubSpot, and Salesforce, and provides API access for extensive interoperability.
If you do not like any of the templates, the user-friendly interface offers many highly customizable settings to make your event unique. Businesses are empowered to easily create custom-branded event pages, badges, and seamless check-in procedures for onsite participants.
The platform’s AI-driven features, including smart content generation and question categorization, aim to enhance the organizer’s efficiency and the attendee’s experience. AI will also enhance Q&A management and automatically categorize questions, making it easier for organizers to answer questions during an event in a more thematic manner and keep related questions together.
There is even an AI-powered Smart Editor called Smart Clips that can automatically generate bite-sized social media video content to help simplify post-event marketing by repurposing event content.
Beyond Innovative Features, RingCentral Events Introduces Pricing that Disrupts the Market
RingCentral Events introduces a paradigm shift with attractive packages, starting at $750/year for up to 100 attendees. This cost is about 50% less than a comparable event offering from other UCaaS vendors and could challenge existing market norms, potentially increasing accessibility to premium event management tools for a broader audience.
Navigating the Future of Events with RingCentral
The introduction of RingCentral Events comes at a critical juncture when the way we gather for conferences and meetings is evolving rapidly. This move could position RingCentral as a pivotal player in the next wave of digital transformation for events, offering a glimpse into a future where hybrid events become the norm and physical distances are bridged by innovative technology.
With its comprehensive, AI-powered, and scalable solution, RingCentral Events might set a new standard for the industry. However, the platform’s success will hinge on its ability to continue integrating new technologies and prove its reliability at scale. As businesses increasingly seek data-driven event solutions, RingCentral’s new offering might pave the way for smarter and more engaging events in a post-pandemic world.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
As Practice Lead - Workplace Collaboration, Craig focuses on developing research, publications and insights that clarify how the workforce, the workplace, and the workflows enable group collaboration and communication. He provides research and analysis related to market sizing and forecasts, product and service evaluations, market trends, and end-user and buyer expectations. In addition to following the technology, Craig also studies the human elements of work - organizing his findings into the workforce, the workplace, and the workflows – and charting how these variables influence technologies and business strategies.
Prior to joining Wainhouse, now a part of The Futurum Group, Craig brings twenty years of experience in leadership roles related to P&L management, product development, strategic planning, and business development of security, SaaS, and unified communication offerings. Craig's experience includes positions at Poly, Dell, Microsoft, and IBM.
Craig holds a Master of Business Administration from the Texas McCombs School of Business as well as a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Tulane University.
