Hybrid events come with their own set of challenges. Here are some to look out for whether you are planning a brand activation, sales kickoff, team building exercise or virtual conference.

Content Production

Making quality, engaging content that meets your goals is tough and requires a lot of effort. This is where a lot of virtual events fall down. While your attendees are sitting in a conference hall with nowhere else to go, perhaps you will keep their attention with the same garden-variety content. But when someone is at home on their couch and can simply mute your conference and turn on Netflix, or go to the kitchen to start making a snack, you need to always be considering how to draw their attention back to your event. Make sure presenters translate well over video and use interactive elements like Q&A or live polls. A mix of pre-recorded and live content is also a great way to keep things interesting for attendees.

Be Mindful of Time Zones

While your virtual experience is open to the whole world, the reality is that no matter what time you choose, a large part of that world is going to be asleep. Successful hybrid events will choose a timeslot that meets the needs of both in-person and virtual experiences, and will provide easy access to the content afterwards, so that it can be watched on demand.

Choose the Right Technology

There are now over 200 platforms to choose from and more coming onto the market every day. It can be a daunting task to choose evaluate and investigate each one to see what is right for you. Don’t feel the pressure to choose the most expensive platform you can afford, as you may not need all those ‘bells and whistles’ you are paying for. It is important to focus on the message you want to get across to your attendees and design and experience to convey that message in the most powerful way. THEN you can select the technology that will help you deliver that experience. Alternately, you can bring an expert on board to help you find the tech that suits your needs.

Integration

One of the biggest challenges emerging as we see more hybrid events happening is integration. A hybrid event is like two events in one and the goal is to have your event technology as integrated as possible – to both make planning as productive as possible and to give attendees the best possible experience regardless of which format they choose. Integrating event registration with the virtual streaming platform, online and in-person trade show appointments, event apps and the a host of other possible services available in the expanding marketplace can be a real technical challenge. Consequently, this is one area our clients find it most useful to have experienced and tech-savvy support to help them from outside.

To learn more contact the Huddle Team below to start planning your hybrid event!