Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Remote Events: Dope or Nope – Selected

There’s really no need for me to state the obvious here. Covid pulled the plug on just about everything we love about conferences and events. The travel, the hotel bars, the spectacle, the lights, the displays. The meeting new people whom you’d otherwise never meet. The catching up with partners, friends, and the like. The business of business that was business, but wasn’t quite the standard “day-to-day” business. The Human Element of business.

This simply does not happen in the online event sphere. And it’s exactly this format that we are all so desperately missing and craving. Because whether we like it or not, as human beings, we are designed and programmed to be social creatures.

I was having a chat with Till Ohrmann from Pirate Global the other day, and posited that the current state of Tech events are a bubble. And in this bubble, the majority of participants are inclined to believe in an absolute and permanent shift to virtual events. If for no other reason, the tech industry wants to embrace tech. That’s that point right? And tech will make the world better, right?

Right?

The crisis has accelerated the growth of online events for sure.  Growing from less than 10% to 20% of the market share in 2 years is unprecedented. Putting a dollar amount on this, according to Grand View Research, online events could represent $404.45 billion by 2027.

My view?

This growth spike is an outlier. An anomaly. A glitch in the matrix. Something none of us could predict, or saw coming.

My prediction, ney, conclusion, is that once a treatment, vaccine, and/or eradication of the virus is widely available, distributed, and administered, the real life, real world, in-person, industry, not solely events, will explode. Concerts, sporting events, cinema, theatre, tradeshows and conferences alike, will all see an unparalleled interest and spike in activity.

The human spirit is not designed to remain in (semi) isolation for this long an amount of time. Yes, I realize that the human race carried on long before the advent of the airplane, train, etc., but the desire to explore new territories, see new worlds, meet new people, drove the invention of these various modes of transportation. Human. Spirit.


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This spirit is already beginning to return in Asia. Tradeshows, traditionally the bread and butter of the event industry, are beginning to show up again. And not just one here and one there, they are happening at scale. The Chinese market is no longer investing in virtual events; their outlier happened between March and June of this year.

Will the event industry be the same as it used to be? Fuck I hope not. Let’s call it like it really is – the market was oversaturated. Everyone and their brother had a summit, and if you really paid attention, after a while, you didn’t. Because you were hearing the exact same speaker giving the exact same talk. The only thing

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Events 6 hours ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

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