For hybrid events ensuring that you have a seamless presentation between live in-person and virtual sessions is paramount to a polished, professional event. Without good technical guidance, this can’t be achieved. So, it’s no surprise that events managers are turning to technical advisors and external technical consultants to make their hybrid event a reality.
“According to our research, event tech providers are now the first place event professionals seek guidance when planning hybrid events. About 35% of respondents selected event tech providers, with production partners the second most popular at 18%.”
While events management teams could potentially do everything in-house with new hires and freelancers, it may save them time and money to collaborate with technical partners who already have the systems and the knowledge to deliver hybrid events.
Here are a few key areas that could be considered for partnership collaboration for your next hybrid event:
1. Seamless video quality
Good quality cameras for venue events are a must but ensuring that webcams are suitable for speakers (and if not, providing tech that is fit-for-purpose) is also important. Your Livestream and AV need to work together to produce a seamless presentation.
2. Interactive tools for engagement
It’s essential for virtual delegates to feel that they can network, chat and ask questions during the event. According to a recent study by EventMB/Skift – 72.5% of virtual attendees come to gain knowledge from the talks, and 7.7% to network with their peers. So simple tools such as Q&A, polling and chat can help to cement that conference feel, even in an online environment.
3. Data capture and measurement
What virtual events do well is offer insights into delegate behaviour, which is not easily achieved during an in-person event. For virtual events, you can track things like delegate numbers online (and offline), which sessions are being attended/who is attending them, and who watches the videos on-demand after the event. Whereas during a physical experience, it can be challenging to determine who has gone to which session or where they are in the exhibition hall.
4. Well-designed platform
Amazingly 3D rendered models of your venue could slow down bandwidth for virtual attendees during the event, and a platform with all the bells and whistles can confuse the less tech-savvy attendee. Strong graphics with your event’s branding and straightforward navigation to stages, breakouts/networking areas, exhibition stands and support/help will be far more effective.
5. Speaker support
Your team will need to support virtual and venue speakers, ensuring that both are given the VIP treatment. This can be difficult to achieve when you are juggling physical and virtual experiences. A dedicated virtual speaker support team can help you to:
- Register speakers and answer pre-event questions
- Ensure that speakers are set up correctly, whether at home, or in the office, or in a separate studio space
- Complete event checks and speaker briefings
- Offer support pre-event and during
- Partner with other agencies to live cast and record sessions
Speakers are at the heart of your event – they are the most important thing to get right, after all – most of your attendees are coming to hear what they have to say and see them present, whether virtually or in the flesh. GoRemote was set up to help events managers to deliver the best speakers sessions – contact us at info@goremote.team events.
Hybrid events, while increasingly popular as an alternative to a complete physical venue return, are tricky to manage and control entirely in-house, so outsourcing to reputable tech partners is the key to the success of your event. For more information on hybrid events – check out our recent blog on When to plan a hybrid event.
