Coronavirus in New York: City business events try to rapidly shift to online only - Crain's New York Business

For New York's busy calendar of networking and business events, there are limited options: go digital, delay or cancel.

An event Thursday night presented by Entre, a company with offices in New York and Pittsburgh, was among the earliest in the city to go the online route. 

Here's how the organization's Women Entrepreneurs Night was supposed to go: About 200 or so people would get a chance to shake hands and pass business cards in Microsoft's Times Square corporate office. There'd be pizza, salads and cookies, plus a panel with investors and women who have launched their own business. Tickets ranged up to $100 and included entry to an after-party.

Instead, about 130 people gathered last night around individual computer screens to listen to the panelists, who live-streamed the discussion from their kitchen or living room. 

"Thank you so much for your patience with technology and for showing up, considering everything going on in the world," said Vicky Lay, moderator of the panel and managing director at Artesian.

Such business events—ranging from nightly mixers to the massive South by Southwest festival—contribute $1 trillion in direct spending to the global economy each year, according to an Oxford Economics study commissioned by the Events Industry Council. They provide a source of revenue and promotion for New York business groups, consultancies, chambers of commerce and news publications.

"Events can be huge for entrepreneurs or people just starting out in their careers," Entre CEO Michael Marra said. "Business is built on relationships."

With social distancing efforts prohibiting all gatherings in the city and in other parts of the country, massive corporate and industry gatherings—such as South by Southwest and the New York Auto Show—have no choice but to delay or cancel. But some of the smaller, get-to-know-you meetings might have a chance to shift online, even if that means forgoing valuable chitchat. 

"Every organization with a membership built around in-person meetings is scrambling right now to move online," said Andrew Rasiej, founder and CEO of Civic Hall, a nonprofit tech community space. "It is still not known how all these events will work." 

Rasiej is chairman emeritus of the New York Tech Alliance, which hosts large monthly meetups where tech companies can demonstrate their products. "We are still trying to figure out how to move a 60,000-member community to online events," he said. 

Marra said Entre had hoped to hold the panel in-person, with no audience, and then stream it. By the start of last week, he knew that wasn't going to happen either. 

The company charged $10 for a log-in code—giving away many for free—and started the event promptly at 6 p.m.—no need to wait for guests to amble in from socializing. 

In the virtual version of the event, people introduced themselves and typed in questions in a chat window to the right of the live screen. An introductory video by Entre showed clips from its past New York events, depicting crowded meeting rooms that seemed of a different era. 

But many things felt familiar, even from the cloud. Sponsors—who stuck it out despite the change in venue—gave short speeches before the start of the four-person panel. Much of the conversation avoided the coronavirus, following instead the beats of a typical business panel, such as lessons learned at launch and tips for working with investors. 

At a time when everyone is anchored in their home and most forms of live entertainment have gone dark, Marra said he hoped the event gave people something to occupy their mind.

"People still want to be a part of something, even as they're stuck at home for the next weeks or months," he said. "Depending on how it goes with these first virtual events, we may even ramp it up and do more." 

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Coronavirus in New York: City business events try to rapidly shift to online only - Crain's New York Business
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