Event organizers still feel nostalgic about the past days – fully occupied halls, fascinating speakers, in-person communication, a wide range of food and drinks, networking and a sense of satisfaction that does not leave participants long after the event. New times have come and technologies are and will be the focus of the event ecosystem. The mix of physical and virtual experiences will be the norm, so it's important to carefully consider how to integrate online and offline audiences during a hybrid event. Here are some tips that may be useful.
Before we start, let's clarify what exactly a hybrid event is - it is an event that allows physical and online presence in terms of the audience, the hosts, the moderators and the speakers. You can join it both - live (physically) and participate online (virtually), by watching its online broadcast (video streaming). The online platform that you use is an important element of any online or hybrid event.
Choose the right platform for streaming online/hybrid events that allows you to interact with your audience.
Get to know your audience
This will help you understand their needs and interests in order to plan the content of the event. How can you do that? Through online registration, in which you can ask a few questions for orientation in their views and expectations towards the event.
Pre-recording of sessions
The entire content of your event does not have to be broadcasted live. If a lecturer is unable to attend in-person, you can provide a pre-recording of his / her session and the lecturer himself / herself to join online for a chat / Q&A session. This way, the presenter will have time to answer the audience's questions in real time.
Accessible and interesting content, presented in an engaging way
Online participants are less involved in the event as they can be more easily distracted. But the same is true for those who are attending in-person. This is why the content must be very well considered to hold the attention of both types of participants. The length of the presentations should be around 15-20 minutes. Those who are interested can ask the lecturer their questions in a separate chat.
Interaction
The best way to improve the engagement of a hybrid event is to get online and offline audiences to interact. For example, you can get them to answer questions after the presentation at the same time, to take part in surveys and share real results, to take part in thematic sessions / workshops, to compete in short online games, to communicate with each other through the Networking function of the platform.
The right presenter
Hybrid events are a relatively new format, so you need to find a presenter who has previous experience with them. In this way, he will be able to involve both types of audience - both physical and virtual. Suitable for this are presenters with experience in television broadcasting.
This is a small part of the possibilities that hybrid events open up for the audience and through which they already have an advantage over the standard ones. However, the success of these types of events largely depends on the ability of the organizers to engage offline and online audiences with different experiences and useful and effective content.
One thing is certain - the future of events will be hybrid. If you have more questions and concerns about an upcoming hybrid event, feel free to contact us https://launchee.space/contact
