Why Your Virtual Event Engagement Is Flat (And It’s Not Your Content)

Here’s something I’ve noticed after producing hundreds of virtual events.

When engagement is flat, the first thing teams do is look at the content. They swap out speakers. They tighten the agenda. They add a poll. They shorten the sessions. They redesign the slides. And then they do it again next quarter. Because the numbers still aren’t moving.

I get it. Content is the thing you can see and touch and iterate on. It feels like the lever. But here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: when people go quiet in your virtual event, content is almost never the culprit.

The problem is that nobody in the room feels seen.

The Event Is Full. The Room Is Empty.

I watched this play out with a product team I worked with closely. They wanted to run a 3-hour “workshop” teaching people how to use their tool. The curriculum was solid. They’d put real work into it. But somewhere in the planning process, a critical question never got asked: what does the audience actually want to walk away with?

The team had their goals—monthly active users, adoption metrics, usage numbers. All legitimate. All reasonable. But the audience’s goals? Left in the parking lot.

The workshop launched. The silence was loud.

This is the most expensive assumption in digital events: that because you know what’s valuable, your audience will automatically agree. It’s actually very human. You’re close to your work. You believe in what you’re sharing. Of course you think they’ll want to hear it.

But your audience logged on with their own agenda. Their own questions. And if your event doesn’t make room for them—their voice, their curiosity, their presence in the chat—they will ghost you in plain sight.

They’ll stay on the call. They just won’t be there.

Being Seen Is Not a Nice-to-Have

The shift that I’ve seen change everything is surprisingly simple: start thinking of your virtual event as a conversation you’re hosting, not a presentation you’re delivering.

One thing that helped a lot of the teams I’ve worked with? Asking one question before the event even happens. Something as simple as “What’s the one thing you’re hoping to walk away with?” changes how you design the whole experience. You’d be amazed what people will tell you when you ask.

The chat is another place where this shows up. So many teams treat it like a sidebar, something happening in the background while the real event is onstage. But for your audience, the chat is where they raise their hand. It’s where they say “I’m here.” When a host acknowledges names, responds to what people are sharing, makes the chat feel alive—the whole room shifts. People lean in.

And then there are the moments. Not a Q&A bolted on at the end, but real designed moments woven throughout where the audience gets to be the protagonist for a minute. Those moments are what people remember.

That’s what they tell their colleagues about on Monday. When people feel seen, they stay. When they stay, they engage. When they engage, your numbers move. It really is that simple a line to draw.

You Don’t Have to Rebuild Everything

The teams I work with who make this shift—from broadcast to conversation, from assumption to curiosity—often feel the difference within one or two events. Not because they overhauled their content. Because they started treating their audience like guests instead of an audience.

And here’s what I know about guests who feel welcome: they come back. They bring people. They become your best case study.

Your content was probably never the problem. The experience around it was. Let’s fix that.