Zoom Events & Webinars

Score8.5 out of 10

356 Reviews and Ratings

What is Zoom Events & Webinars?

Zoom Events and Webinars are part of Zoom’s event solutions that uses existing Zoom products to produce interactive and engaging virtual experiences. It combines Zoom Meetings, Chat, and Video Webinars in one solution that enables event organizers to produce ticketed, live events for internal or external audiences of any size.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of features available for Zoom Events & Webinars

Screenshot of features available for Zoom Events

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Screenshot of features available for Zoom Events & Webinars

Registration, RSVP, and ticketing
Attendees can register, RSVP, and/or purchase tickets for the event in advance
Category average: 8.1
Livestreaming
Events can be broadcast live to hundreds or thousands of attendees
Category average: 8.1
Event analytics
Analytics and reporting (e.g., total attendee counts at individual presentations and booths, satisfaction with presentations) are available to help determine the success of events
Category average: 8.4

Virtual booths
Sponsors can set up customizable virtual booths that attendees can visit
Category average: 8.4
Networking
Video and text chats specifically for attendee networking are available
Category average: 8.4
Event recording
Events can be recorded so that attendees can rewatch presentations at a later time
Category average: 8.2

Ray Harwood

Online Event Producer in Professional Services at GoodClix (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Zoom Events primarily to host virtual events for clients whose needs demand something more than "just a meeting or a webinar". Clients who have conference-like, multi-day, multi-session events see Zoom Events as an opportunity to "scale up" their event without huge expense. While Zoom Events can accommodate hybrid events, those come with a degree of complexity that can be expensive. Many of my clients are staying with annual virtual events or alternating onsite and virtual events, with some wanting to convert their small-scale onsite events to hybrid. I've used Zoom Events for groups as small as 50 and as large as 800 (an upcoming event will be 1,200+), and once you learn the event configuration process, any event is easy to configure -- once you have your event details down on paper or in spreadsheets. A lot of it can be imported with CSV with no hand data-entry.

Pros

Easy data entry using imported CSV files
Full speaker and session images and text, with individual itineraries for attendees.
Duplicate the structure and format of an existing event for your next event, or create an event template to easily replicate future events
Automated language caption translation on-the-fly for a growing list of languages

Cons

Like most Zoom products, Zoom Events is actively being improved and updated. The release cycle is monthly, which means event planners need to keep up with changes.
While Zoom Events also works for in-person only events, this will require a certain mind-set shift to work well for many organizations.
There is a core group of small business Zoom Events users who can provide help to new-comers, and an increasing number of helpful on-boarding resources, but Zoom Tier 1 support still starts out with the most pedantic questions; it's difficult to reach someone who can really help you with a difficult problem if you are not a large Zoom customer.
Professional Services is available from Zoom, but it the cost is out of reach of most small businesses and non-profit organizations.

Return on Investment

As a solo producer of Zoom Meetings, Webinars, and Events, the Zoom Events Pay Per Attendee (PPA) licensing plan allows me to provide custom virtual events for audiences of any size at a low cost per attendee. I've talked to many other "big event hosting" services, and so far none of them have what my clients want at a cost they can afford.
I have my own Zoom Events "Unlimited" license for up to 100 attendees. Unlimited licenses are only cost-effective if you host numerous events throughout the one-year license period. If you organization or client base is larger, the cost can seem prohibitive for small companies, and I've consulted with clients who were on the verge of "buying the wrong license" (in my opinion) without understanding the licensing limitations.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Whova and Hopin

Other Software Used

vMix Live Streaming Software, StreamAlive, Calendly

Ashley Wren View profile

Program Manager at World Molecular Imaging Society (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Zoom Webinars for all our webinars within our scientific society. This allows us to reach people worldwide with our scientific webinars. We use Zoom webinars on average once or twice a month for our webinars. The Zoom platform is much easier for our speakers to use than the previous platforms we have used.

Pros

Speaker access.
User-friendly.
Easy to build a webinar.
Easy to look up analytics after the webinar.

Cons

Director speaker join- sometimes it doesn’t work, and I have to send multiple emails for the speakers (who didn’t receive the original Zoom invitation) to join the webinar.
Updating the event description - the latest update made it difficult to update the description for the event in any place other than the event page, which is clunky.

Return on Investment

More engagement and attendance from our audience.
Happier speakers and organizers.
Less complaints from speakers and organizers.
Easy to learn and use.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

GoTo Webinar

Mantra Manan Saraswat View profile

Product Manager in Product Management at 100ms (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it primarily for meetings, primarily external and customer meetings. Internally, we use different meeting services like Google Meet, [...] (our product), Slack huddle and Zoom Workplace, based on personal preference. Most of the team is remote, so collaboration is very important for an internationally diverse team like ours. So Zoom Workplace's plugins and extensions came in handy during our brainstorming or town-hall sessions. Our use case was limited to Zoom Workplace meetings, whiteboard, some extensions like polly, and occassional webinars.

It is used most by our sales and customer success teams.

Pros

Super consistent video quality in Zoom Workplace meetings
Breakout rooms, strong and diverse permissions suite, recording and transcription
Support for multiple extensions and lots of meeting bots support
Can just call in to a meeting in case of patchy network rather than joining through the app

Cons

Very heavy and resource hungry app (mobile and Mac)
Switching between accounts (office, personal) is a hassle.
Random Zoom Workplace update pop-ups, especially when my meeting is about to start.

Return on Investment

Improved collaboration and interactive meetings with the entire team
Great for customer meetings because of the polished interface, multiple note-taking extensions

Alternatives Considered

Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams

Christian Limburg View profile

Head of Claims Management SME/Freelancers at HDI Group DE (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Zoom Events & Webinars to exchange ideas with service partners and to take part in various events.

Pros

Simple operation
great colloboration
good range of functions

Cons

data transfer

Return on Investment

Facilitation
Professionalism

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business / Lync (discontinued)

Other Software Used

Microsoft Teams

Angela Stuart

DHOS at Keystone (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Zoom Events & Webinars is our first choice for meetings. We use it for internal, external and international communication purposes. In all situations it is accessible and the connections are strong and clear. Recently we used it to interview someone who needed captions and it was easy to use for both parties. It never lets us down!

Pros

Audio options are well designed and easy to adjust when doing screen shares on the fly.
Video has the BEST view of me I have ever seen on an online virtual meeting space. It adjusts for lighting, removes all the flyaway hair and I appreciate that greatly!
Zoom Workplace helps me move from a chat to a meeting easily and in the time I need to get there for the priority event at hand.

Cons

Saving messages and searching them to find information after the meeting has happened is no easily done. It seems messages go to encrypted after a time and are not readily available
internal recording maintenance post meeting should be selective so I am able to select the important items to keep and the others can fall away.
Whiteboards seem to confuse users, not all see them with the meeting leader's screen.

Return on Investment

collaboration results in customer satisfaction since we can address them more quickly and completely in a shorter time.
Spreading information across teams is a quick and simple process with Zoom.
It is great as an employee motivational tool. I can message them with positive inspiration or recognition at the moment it happens and it is always received.