IMASTE Currently Focuses on the European Market with Their Virtual Event & Virtual Job Fair Platform

IMASTE, one of Europe’s major players in the virtual event industry, began producing real world job fairs 6 years ago. Although they still produce physical events, the Spanish company saw an opportunity to break into virtual world also. Two and a half years ago, they produced their first virtual job fair, and they show no signs of letting up. They have created their own immersive, browser-based platform with which they can move beyond job fairs to any number of other events. By partnering with other European companies, IMASTE has carved out a strong presence for itself in both the physical world and the virtual.

IMASTE first dipped a toe into the virtual pool by creating a presence in Second Life. The company then made a commitment to replicate its physical world experience as closely as possible online. They began building their platform with Flash and PHP, but soon switched to Adobe Flex becoming the first company in Spain to do so. IMASTE currently keeps a foot in both worlds, producing one physical and one virtual job fair a year for its university clients. The platform boasts a high level of customization, a feature-rich user experience and a level of reporting metrics that cannot be achieved in a real world event. It offers a profile matching component, video chat and IM. It also has social networking integration.

IMASTE acts as its own event producer in its home country, but in other parts of Europe, it works with partners. They have collaborated with Monster.com to produce job fairs in France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy. Despite their success, initial approaches to event producers were met with skepticism. “Most of event managers that were seeing our idea thought that it was dangerous,” explains IMASTE Partner-Director Miguel Arias. “They initially saw us as a menace because they said you have a platform that will take my clients away and my visitors away. I would add that this is changing now (we will launch a wedding fair and a gourmet fair in the following weeks). They could not see the complimentary aspect of virtual events.” In spite of the initial resistance, however, IMASTE has sought to maintain high standards by producing fewer events than some of their counterparts and by adhering to the same degree of quality they display in their physical events.

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IMASTE offers a basic package which includes 25 booths and the platform’s customized features for $12,000 (€9000). Companies can expand from that starting point, adding extra booths (€400), registration (€4000), a different language (€2000), etc. Arias estimates the average cost of an event runs about $30-40,000, comparable to American price models. For larger clients who offer a more secure income stream, IMASTE provides a revenue sharing plan.

Arias sees a demand out there that the industry is, as yet, unable to meet. And since the demand may ultimately prove so vast, companies may need to create niche markets for themselves as opposed to covering all the bases. Arias foresees partnerships as part of the solution. “I’m sure that we will need to allow other parties to control not only the assets, the 3D and stuff,” he explains, “but also part of the application features.” Arias feels the company’s understanding of the nitty gritty details of physical event production gives them an advantage over companies that may be simply technology-based without any real world experience. And that lack of experience may hurt the industry if it translates into unhappy customers, a potential reality that Arias has seen looming on the horizon. With the virtual event industry still in its infancy, it must tread carefully to avoid alienating customers, many of whom are still on the fence about embracing the new technology. For its part, however, Arias seeks to win over the skeptics with its combination of experience, customer service and technology.