Event agency Freeman will go virtual and hybrid with Hubilo

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 a 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.

Why we care. Few trends in the event marketing space are more obvious than vendors that once focused on in-person adding virtual capabilities to their portfolio. Compare Freeman’s approach with that of Splash. Splash developed its 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. Freeman wants to offer its customers a seamless vitual and hybrid option, but has gone the partnership route. Here we see a legacy event agency, with strengths in healthcare and technology conferences, choosing to leverage a virtual specialist to offer customers the full range of options.

Dig deeper: How to tackle the challenges of running successful hybrid events