As the events industry struggles with the daunting tasks of managing and making sense of the large amounts of data that are now being collected at events, an industry working group led by BPA Worldwide has officially launched its new Reporting Standards for Digital Events (RSDE). BPA has announced that it will now begin certifying digital event platforms to the RSDE standards.
The initiative began as a way for virtual events to obtain UFI Approved Event status, and almost a year later has ultimately turned into industry-wide reporting standards to better support the management and analysis of event data. The BPA-led working group consists of representatives from 15 event industry organizations, including Questex, BizBash, UFI, IAEE, and Swapcard.
“The goal for these standards is to serve as a guide for digital platforms to adopt to help organizers accurately and efficiently report on metrics,” explained Glenn Hansen, BPA’s President and CEO, in a statement. “With RSDE, event organizers, exhibitors, digital event platforms and data analysts now have the tools to bring more trust and transparency into the digital event marketplace.”
Although virtual events have enabled organizers and platforms to collect more data than ever before — which, in theory, is a great thing and will help improve event experiences and reporting — in practice, organizers and exhibitors have often misunderstood the data that is sent to them by event tech platforms, especially if they are getting data from different sources that are formatting data differently.
RSDE consists of a standardized set of 17 data tables and glossary terms, as well as an RFP template that organizers can use when selecting a platform and contract terms and conditions to make sure they address data ownership and privacy protection compliance.
“RSDE will provide organizers and exhibitors with the information they need (and have been eagerly awaiting) to understand and evaluate the impact of digital events, ultimately driving a cycle of continuous improvement,” said Robyn Davis, Owner at Exhibitors WINH LLC, and a member of the RSDE working group, in a statement.
Additionally, RSDE has collaborated with fellow event data initiative VSef, and they will continue to work together to ensure that their guidelines and guidance remain aligned.