Hybrid events
Are you hosting an onsite event, and many of your attendees cannot be there in-person? Do you know what a hybrid event can offer?
If this is the case with you, hybrid events are the best solution; you can organize virtual and in-person meetings simultaneously or separately. Moreover, these events allow you to have an increased number of participants.
In this article, you will be able to learn
- What is a hybrid event?
- Types of hybrid events
- Benefits of the hybrid events
- How can you host hybrid events?
You would be able to host a hybrid event after reading this article.
What is a hybrid event?
A hybrid event combines virtual and in-person events that permit the audience to attend the meeting according to their ease.
Larger gatherings may be risky, and most people are afraid of traveling due to financial, health, and safety reasons. So they may have a hard time committing to attend your meeting. As a result, your audience list may get short.
There are two parts to the hybrid event, and you have to design and personalize them carefully. You have to do customization so that both types of audiences can get interested and participate in your purpose.
The in-person audience can have a better experience and can generate leads. On the other hand, a virtual audience can participate and access your content and increase the number of new connections from their homes.
Nowadays, it is easier to organize hybrid events with the help of the latest technology. The latest technology can give your virtual attendees an incredible experience. There are many features nowadays to host meetings online.
You can also get onsite attendee engagement with traditional audio-visual methods and produce the environment to generate leads, engage the audience, and brand awareness.
This combination gives you fresh ways to attach to your audience and make a new plan of action for company or brand awareness.
Types of hybrid events
Most businesses are doing hybrid events these days. B2B and B2C marketing enriched its opportunities with the hybrid event as it expands the business by providing reach, connections, and community.
You can organize hybrid events in four ways for your needs. You can host them in different ways according to the purpose of your event.
1-In-person and virtual events simultaneously
You can call this type a literal hybrid event as it encompasses both virtual participants and in-person attendees.
The live audience can interact with each other in the live event without any hurdles and have a great experience interacting with the speaker. The online participants can also interact with the speaker and have a great live experience of the event.
When should you consider a simultaneous hybrid event?
If you own a company with global networking and your audience has different locations, this type of event would be perfect for you. The advantage of this type of event is that everyone can access the information at the same time equally.
2-Live Studio hybrid events:
The live studio hybrid events take inspiration from talk shows where the host performs in front of a smaller audience and broadcasts it to a bigger audience.
The advantage of this type of event format is that the energy and cheering environment of the in-person audience also transmits to the audience attending virtually.
The online attendees can relate themselves to the onsite attendees. In this way, the virtual experience of the broad audience becomes more exciting and engaging.
When should you consider a live Studio hybrid event?
The live studio hybrid event helps launch a new product for your company. Launching a new product can be seen by a broader audience while still having an in-person experience.
Today’s technology allows us to make the online component as catchy as the physical venue.
3- On-demand hybrid events
In on-demand hybrid events, a large group of people attends a physical event, and the event’s content is also captured to share with the audience on social media channels. The hybrid event platform is impactful if the host is a speaker and talks about a specific topic.
The company or host records the event to use it to acquire the audience later from virtual platforms. The on-demand content is shared in these events.
When should you consider a Popular hybrid event?
You should consider a popular hybrid event if you are a motivational speaker or a politician and handling a large number of people live and at the same time want to save the information so that you can access the virtual audience later.
To make use of the physical events later to transmit the content of the event online.
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4- Hub and spoke format of the hybrid event.
In this format, a group of presenters and attendees are present in one place like an office or company, and smaller groups of attendees are present in locations like a meeting hall, hotels, or their houses.
In this event, people can enjoy together like traditional meetings but still are virtually connected with the hub and can get pieces of training or listen to presentations and present their ideas.
When should you consider a hub and spoke format for the hybrid event?
This format helps give the training to the employees of the company. The trainer should have a high-quality camera setup and voice quality to communicate better. Hub and spoke format of the event is also meaningful for the question-answer session with an expert and team meetings.
Benefits of the hybrid events
Now people are aware of the online events, and they are used to them because of the global pandemic. The online environment has flourished during the past few years, and people prefer video calls instead of visiting someone and avoid traveling to other places.
The events industry has also gone through difficult times during pandemic days, and there comes a hybrid event strategy. The hybrid events prove beneficial for the event professionals.
If you organize a virtual event, it has its advantages and drawbacks. Similarly, when you host an in-person event, it has its pros and cons. By combining both, you can have more benefits and fewer drawbacks.
A successful hybrid event has the following benefits over virtual or in-person events.
1- More reach and audience
The hybrid event is the future of the event industry. The main benefit of a hybrid event is that more people can attend your event or meeting.
In offices or companies, a common misunderstanding is that the people should either do an online or an in-person meeting. That is related to so many problems as some people cannot reach the destination due to poor health or other travel-related issues.
So they miss the important meetings and events. Hybrid events eradicate this issue by allowing the person to join an online meeting so that he cannot miss something. Now everyone can join the meeting with the help of a hybrid event.
2- Fewer expenses:
Organizing a physical event needs physical space and other facilities. So, you can only invite a limited audience. To invite an unlimited audience, you need unlimited resources.
Even if you have organized a large physical event, you cannot reach more people if you don’t put your event content online.
So hybrid events allow reaching more audiences with lesser expenses and accommodation. They allow you to get a bigger audience by cutting costs of traveling and organization.
3- More attention from the audience
Hybrid events allow your audience to engage more than a virtual event platform. Virtual participants can relate to the physically present audience and share their views in different ways, like commenting, sharing, interacting in video meetings, and asking questions to the presenter. They can engage more with the energy of the live audience.
The live audience can also engage more with the presenters and interact with the audience and the host. Virtual attendees can join on virtual platforms.
3- More opportunities and prospects
When you are organizing a hybrid event, you can access more opportunities. Like you can achieve your goals of having sponsors, more sign-ups to your websites, brand awareness, product launch, training your students, panel discussions, or meetings with your staff.
A successful hybrid event can prosper your business, company, or organization. If you are running an office and schedule meetings, imagine your workers never miss them because they are easily attending them, which can boost your company’s profit.
These hybrid presentations can save your time while utilizing one event in various ways. You can have more networking opportunities through hybrid events.
4- What a hybrid event offers: insights
When onsite and virtual attendees are part of your audience, you can get better insights. You can keep track of the data because virtual and onsite attendees can give feedback. You can use that feedback to improve your products or other sectors.
5-Adaptability for future events
Most event organizers are moving toward planning future events live. The traditional physical venue can be risky these days. The waves of pandemics are emerging day by day.
Moreover, there may be a volcanic eruption, storms, or other natural events in the future that can cause damage to the event industry.
So hybrid event is a choice for the future as it provides the facility to put your eggs in more than one basket.
6-Recording of event
Even if you organize live events, you can save them if you record them. You can use these saved recordings in the future or for the other audience. The recorded events will be so much beneficial for you. You can play them whenever you need them.
You can also upload them on social media platforms to get more views, insights, sign-ups, and audiences. A virtual component of your live events can benefit you in many ways.
7- Reduce environmental degradation
Suppose you are organizing an event with thousands of people. Those people will damage the environment in hundred of ways.
The first is the use of transport and vehicles causing the release of smoke to cause air pollution.
The second is the wastage of petroleum and gas. The third is the use of plastic glasses or bottles they will use because you cannot provide each of them with crockery. Even if you arrange it, that can be very expensive for you.
The fourth but the most important thing is that connecting many people causes another wave of a pandemic, or there is a danger of spreading diseases through live events.
So the solution to all of these problems is arranging a hybrid event. The hybrid event will provide you with the benefits of a large number of attendees while reducing environmental danger.
8- Community building
People not only attend the meetings to listen to the presentations, but they want to increase the number of connections. People love to communicate with those having similar thoughts.
So providing them with the right means of communication is your responsibility if you want to grow your business and community. Hybrid events provide all those means in various ways. Hybrid events allow person-to-person interaction both onsite and remotely.
9- Easy to organize what a hybrid event can look like
Hybrid events are easy to organize and can be less expensive. They are also easy to attend to, give peace of mind and avoid hustle and tension.
Everyone can be available, and they can protect themselves from traveling long distances.
10- Easy marketing
The hybrid event attracts both virtual attendees and in-person attendees. That causes lead generation and increases the chances of having sponsorship.
How can you host hybrid events?
Hosting a hybrid event is very challenging. You need to handle both live and virtual audiences and make arrangements according to them.
It would be best to consider some of the necessary factors before starting a hybrid event. Try to minimize any unwelcoming problem if it comes in your way earlier than the event.
For hosting your hybrid event, you need to keep in check the following things.
1- Estimate the number of audiences
As you have two audience types, you need to have both setups. The number of virtual audiences does not have any effect. Still, the onsite attendees need specific arrangements, like space and refreshments. It would be best to have a rough idea of the number of onsite audiences.
2-Set the budget
You need to set a budget for organizing the event. You have to spend both onsite and virtually to organize the hybrid event.
The onsite event needs a budget for arranging sitting space, tables, speaker instruments, refreshments, and music.
Similarly, virtual event preparations need a setup like sharing tools, camera setups, and voice setup for clear broadcasting.
3- Invite people
It would be best to invite people by running social media campaigns and ads. Also, you can start a hashtag and countdown on social media sites. You can also send emails to inform people about your event.
Create a trailer video to get the attention of your live and remote audience. More people are attracted to video campaigns.
4-Host speakers live
When organizing a hybrid event, you have two options: having your speaker onsite or having the speaker on a virtual platform. But it would be better to have a speaker on site.
All your attendees, i.e., onsite attendees or those who participate virtually, can get a better experience with an onsite speaker, and you will have a successful event.
A successful hybrid event would be one in which both types of attendees are engaged. A remote speaker does not impact the audience much compared to a live speaker, but in hybrid events, you can also arrange a virtual speaker.
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5-Interconnect both audiences
One of the main reasons people attend these events is to expand their network by communicating with other people. You have to make arrangements to connect both in-person and online attendees. You can interconnect them via remote chat rooms, direct messaging or polling, etc.
You can also arrange a meet and greet at virtual platforms, so both the audience can attend them easily. Make sure the speaker of your hybrid event engages with both audiences and motivates them to engage with one another.
Interconnecting your audience is a way to expand the community, and it is a sign of a successful event. People always like to talk to other people having similar thoughts as them. So they can talk about ideas.
6- Insights and Data
At the end of your event, analyze the data and measure insights of the event. With a hybrid event, you can easily have remote insights. Studying the feedback data and understanding is significant for improving your next hybrid event.
You can get these insights from the remote channels by watching the number of shares, comments, views, and behind-the-scenes chats and likes. Plan your next successful hybrid event with the help of these insights.
You can also target the audience from where you have more engagement and next time, consider them as the target audience. You can send targeted emails, and show them social media ads, google ads, youtube ads, etc.
7- Express thank you to your audience
The hybrid event’s last step is to thank your audience by sending them a Gmail and saying thank you for coming. Appreciate that they managed their time to go to your event and include them in your future hybrid event list.
Also, please send them messages as a call to action to give feedback and comments; also, convince them to share the remote recordings of your event with their friends. You can also ask them to post the event videos as stories on their social media accounts.
These small actions can make them your loyal fans, and they can invite their friends and family to your event.
You can also send emails to other attendees who miss participating in the event. You can send them emails saying we miss you at the event.
By following all these tips, you will be able to organize the hybrid event. Hybrid event is the future of the event industry.
FAQs of Hybrid events
Can we combine a virtual event and an in-person event?
Combining virtual events and in-person events is known as hybrid events. Virtual events alone are not as impactful as hybrid events. You can have virtual attendees and in-person attendees at a hybrid event.
In recent years, virtual and hybrid events have been mostly organized because of pandemics. People can attend in person and at any virtual platform and can increase their networking opportunities.
What are the pros and cons of an in-person event?
In-person events have been organized for many years. But nowadays, in-person events are not successful because of pandemic situations. There are many advantages of a live event, event content can be more exciting than a virtual event platform, and in-person interactions are easy for physical attendees.
The cons of a live event are arrangements of venue capacity in the same room or different spaces and difficulties faced by onsite attendees in traveling.
What are the pros and cons of virtual events?
The advantage of a virtual venue is that the virtual attendees can get virtual experiences at the ease of their homes. The virtual audience is vast, and event organizers do not need to worry about their accommodation. The virtual audience helps the environment by not traveling to the event.
The cons are that a virtual audience cannot get the same excitement and association as in-person attendees.
What Are Hybrid Events? Conclusions:
A hybrid event means you can have attendees engaged in both ways, i.e., virtually and physically. The hybrid event can be attended by virtual audiences and live stream audiences. You can achieve the benefits of the physical and virtual platforms by arranging one event.
There are many types of hybrid events you can host. You can choose the kind of event suitable for your content type. There are many benefits of a hybrid event.
Now you have learned how you can host a hybrid event. But if you cannot make arrangements yourself, Quiz Coconut can organize a sparkling event for you. We will help you to host your events professionally. To book your event, click here.
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