Home » The Hybrid Experience: How to Plan Events for Both In-Person and Virtual Attendees
Business Social Media

The Hybrid Experience: How to Plan Events for Both In-Person and Virtual Attendees

The world hit a stumbling block with the outcast of the pandemic. To say businesses across industries were assessed would be an understatement. They went through a whirlwind of ups and downs, and the need to adapt to the change as per the prevailing circumstances grew. 

The event industry, being no exception, had to find new ways of conducting events. While nothing can replace the charm of live events, the organizers found their way out with virtual events. Still bridging the gap of impact generation was difficult. 

This is where hybrid events got the spotlight and now they are on a rise.

To know everything about the hybrid events, make your way to the end of this blog. 

What Are Hybrid Events?

Simply put, hybrid events are a blend of live and virtual events. The event is conducted both online and offline, at a physical place and via a streaming platform. 

For these kinds of events to be successful, taking care of multiple aspects is important. The most important one is, user-engagement. Holding onto the audience’s attention in a hybrid event is rather difficult and it can also get chaotic. 

So, here are a few hybrid events examples in which you can plan your next hybrid event. 

Tips On Planning A Hybrid Event- Deliver The Best Of Two Worlds

Think Of Your Digital Attendees First

When deciding upon your speakers, room layouts, and the flow of the event, digital attendees should be your priority. This is because they do not have the same attention span as that of your live audience. 

Apart from this, the digital audience will need to be able to interact with the in-person sessions-asking questions of the speakers, meet with exhibitors, and also interact with the live audience. Hence, include activities, to keep event attendees engaged in both worlds. 

Deliver Shared Experiences

While it holds true that on-site and offline elements are distinct in many ways, still enabling audiences of both worlds to experience something together can level up the scale of your event in totality. 

Successful hybrid event planners suggest others to take real-time feedback from the virtual audience to be able to keep them hooked and interested. You can choose to plan games, have a Q/A round, have a performance by stand-up comics, musicians, etc to let both the attendees have a gala time together. 

Showcase A Social Wall

The attendees of your event will create content using the branded hashtag, mentions, tags, etc. Now, with hybrid events, having an approach that can help you effectively gather all the content created by audiences of both the world is crucial. 

The social wall will collect all the content and put it up in a unified presentation, moderate and customize the feed, depending upon the aesthetics and values of the event. 

Not just social media posts, organizers can also add the content generated by them to publicize and market the event better. 

Moreover, it can also effectively encourage other participants to create content and get featured on the social wall. This will also enhance the impact of your social wall. 

The social media feeds get updated in real-time, which enhances the chances to communicate and interact among the attendees. 

Display Only High-end Compelling Content

Irrespective of how cleverly you plan your event, content is the only weapon in your arsenal that can aid you to cut an edge. 

Grabbing the attention of your attendees and holding onto it until the event lasts, is definitely a tedious task. Here, displaying content that adds value to your attendees, sparks their curiosity, and keeps them engaged throughout, is imperative. 

Visuals, especially in a video format, easily captivate the audience. That is why 61% of marketers use them to initiate interactions.

Design your content depending upon your niche but do not forget to add elements of fun like polls, memes, quotes, trivia, etc.

In fact, statistics show that 71% of virtual event organizers employ polls to hold onto the audience’s attention. 

Over To You

Hybrid events might have gotten the limelight just yet, but they have a lot of potentials. Moreso, because they provide an immersive experience to the audience of the world. 

Further with smart strategy and happening event schedule, achieving user engagement is not that difficult a task. Leverage these ideas to conduct the best hybrid event and make your attendees want to come back to you for future events. 

About the author

jackroger

Add Comment

Click here to post a comment