Freeman, the global design and production company for trade shows, expos, conventions and other events has announced a strategic partnership with virtual events platform Hubilo. Freeman, which produces well over 10,000 events annually in North America, will now offer a ready-to-use digital component for events of all sizes.
Freeman was founded in 1927 and has spent almost century creating in-person events. Hubilo, only five years old, will bring virtual components like custom branding, personalized networking, break out sessions, digital booths and virtual happy hours.
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Why we care. Few trends in the event marketing space are more obvious than vendors that once focused on in-person are adding virtual capabilities to their portfolio. Splash developed their proprietary Splash Studio in house. CEO Eric Holmen told us, “If you’d asked me when I joined Splash two years ago, would we be doing virtual events, I’d have said, no, we’re going to focus where we’re strong, on in-person events.”
The voice of the customer was decisive for Splash. As brands look for single solutions for in-person, hybrid and virtual events, event management companies that can offer only in-person or virtual will be at a disadvantage. Here we see a legacy event agency, with strengths in healthcase and technology conferences, choosing to leverage a virtual specialist to offer customers the full range of options.
Read next: How to tackle the challenges of running successful hybrid events
