Introducing: OnAir by Zoho Backstage. Run your events, virtually.

As the arrival of COVID-19 forced much of the events industry to hit pause on in-person events, many pivoted to virtual events. While Backstage has helped businesses run thousands of offline events in our two years of existence, we realized the current need is for a virtual event management solution. So we got to work.

To help you run the show from wherever you are, we’re excited to introduce Zoho Backstage OnAir. This opens up endless possibilities to connect and engage with your audience virtually. OnAir offers the ease and simplicity you’ve come to expect from Backstage, but for your virtual events. Let’s look at how.

Event live cast

Easily broadcast your sessions to your attendees. Bring more context to your sessions by sharing course materials, presentations, and more. You can even share your screen or use the virtual whiteboard to explain topics in-depth.

Polls, questions, and more

Light up your sessions with various engagement tools—ask questions, run polls, and chat with your audience.

Post-session analytics

Discover how engaged your attendees were with the help of engagement metrics. Learn about the most popular sessions and speakers. Run a customized, post-session survey to get deeper insights.

Want to know what else is included? Check out the complete list of features here.

Given this new addition, you might be wondering, “Will virtual events replace live events altogether?” At Backstage, we don’t think they will.

However, we do believe that we’ll see live events getting transformed into something better: hybrid events, a combination of in-person and online events. In fact, we think the virtual component will only help enhance the overall event experience and put organizers in touch with more attendees, irrespective of where they are located.

And that’s where Zoho Backstage is headed—comprehensive software that helps event organizers run both online and offline events.

That’s not all

Incidentally, the launch of OnAir also marks two years since Zoho Backstage launched! The first release for Zoho Backstage focused on features essential for event organizers to get started, like an event website builder, agenda planner, event promotions, and a couple of features to build attendee engagement.

Earlier this year, we launched one of our favorite features—BadgeUp—to help organizers customize and design their event badges. We also realized how different each event is and the need to customize roles and permissions accordingly in the process of managing the event. That’s why we enabled organizers to create their own roles and set their permissions as required.

And those are just some of the updates from the last couple of years. Here’s a full list, in case you’re interested.

In just two years of helping event hosts run successful events, we’ve had lots to learn and contribute. Here are some stats that we’d love to share with you:

• 14930 LIVE Events
• 1826 Online Events
• 372461 Attendees

None of this would’ve been possible without the constructive criticism and encouragement from our friends and customers. We’d like to thank you for your love and support. We look forward to continue working with you.

One more thing

We recently launched our blog series, The Green Room, to share all our insights and updates about the event industry. If you haven’t already, check it out and let us know what you think about it.