The ultimate guide for planning hybrid events

In the current COVID-19 pandemic, virtual events are certainly helping a few event organizers to avoid event cancellations or postponements. They have been learning some best practices to shift their live events online and adapting to the new event technologies. However, virtual events are not going to completely replace in-person events. 

As the lockdown restrictions are easing down across the globe, event professionals are now considering hybrid events as the best way to reinvent face-to-face events. With hybrid events, they can incorporate virtual elements into live events to make it accessible for the people interested in their event but couldn’t able to travel. 

What are hybrid events?

A hybrid event is any event where both the live and virtual audience can participate at the same time. For instance, a corporate event is being held in New York with an in-person audience, but the event organizer also live streams the event for the remote audience. 

To help event organizers who aren’t familiar with hybrid events, we’ve come up with some guidelines to make it a successful event. 

Build an event strategy

To host a live event and virtual event at the same time is not an easy task for the event organizers. Particularly, for those who haven’t hosted a hybrid event in the past. So, it’s crucial to create a work plan by brainstorming with your team. Asking questions will certainly help you to come up with a perfect plan. You can ask these questions to yourself to plan your hybrid event effectively;

• What’s the event topic?
• Is it going to be an internal or external event?
• Which venue?
• How to promote your event?
• Who is your target audience?
• How to bring in sponsors?
• Do you have the tools to host a virtual event?
• How to monetize your event?
• Which video hosting provider to choose?
• Do you require event management software?
• How to connect your live audience with a remote audience?
• How to engage your audience?

Choosing the right venue

While hosting a hybrid event, it’s important to choose a venue that caters for both in-person and virtual audiences. You have to find a venue with audio/visual equipment, lighting, faultless Wi-Fi, and other technical requirements to execute your hybrid event strategies without any hassles. Also, ensure that you’re able to rehearse your event in the venue that you choose to test the A/V equipment and make your speakers feel comfortable before the event.

Partner with the event technology platform

Choosing the right event technology helps you to execute your hybrid event strategies with ease. Ultimately, it saves you a lot of time and helps you focus on creating a good event experience for your attendees. It allows you to create an event website, manage registrations, monetize, promote, and engage your audience. Besides, you can also integrate any webinar or live stream provider with these event technologies to streamline your event tasks.

Attendee engagement

When it comes to hybrid events, audience participation and engagement plays an important role in the success of your event. You must think of ways to make both your live audience and remote audience interact with. Create a conference room where attendees can chat and ask questions during the event. Also, you can ask them to participate in live polls and surveys. Besides, you can also create an event app for your attendees to send them event updates and personalized notifications. 

Looking for an event technology for your hybrid event? Contacts Us!