What is a hybrid event, and how do you organize it?

For the unversed, hybrid events are hosted as an amalgamation of in-person (physical) and online (virtual) events. Picture this, an ongoing live event is also broadcasted for a similar audience who just can’t be present at the venue and are attending virtually.

Because of its very nature, hybrid events may bring with them the complexity of simultaneously hosting an in-person and virtual event. As an event organizer you may need to deliver that extra valiant effort to engage sponsors and handle both technical and technological issues such as connectivity and coordination during the event.

Barring the above, which are mere technical and logistic demands, a greater prospect awaits you once you have learnt the art of hosting a hybrid event. Just think of it like having an additional auxiliary, and you have an additional platform for you to proficiently mesmerize your conscious audience by utilizing the best of both the worlds (in-person and virtual).

The pandemic did pave the way for many things to go online undoubtedly. During the conception of hybrid events, the skepticism of who would adopt it was the only certainty. But ever since hybrid gradually penetrated the world of events, there has been a healthy increase in adoption of hybrid events because of the many benefits they offer viz. greater flexibility, wider reach and higher savings. Listed below are a few ideas that may help you in organizing a hybrid event.

Reassess and define — Reassess your previous event accomplishments and act on the improvements in terms of generating more engagement, leads and social media circulations for your forthcoming event. Define your current event goals and objectives and brainstorm on the following –

A practical and tangible exercise that includes your budget expansion, technical armoury, time frame to register attendees (for both in-person and virtual) and technical know-how. List down your attendees and speakers, and follow up with them by sharing your idea of the event, considering it is hybrid. Make a list of attendees who are most likely to attend in-person, and another list who would prefer virtual. Aged attendees or those ailing slightly are most likely to join virtually while others may want to attend in-person.

Ensure you have the right KPIs for the specific event — KPIs enable you to make smart and relevant decisions and also help you quantify and measure the effectiveness of the project you are handling to determine how close you are in terms of achieving your objectives. This is even more significant when handling a demanding event in the form of hybrid.

Touch base on your important stake holders by driving them with engaging content; campaign simultaneously so that you don’t lose base on one. Plan campaigns specific to physical and virtual and that will work wonderfully if executed well. Running through your attendee list and registrations to your speaker and vice versa will create a good impression on both of them.

The value you intend to deliver with hybrid also depends on the kind of platform you choose. For the physical event, you choose a secure, yet appealing and accessible venue. Also, because it is virtual, you need to choose the most convenient virtual platform which can be easily accessed and seamlessly integrated to a phone or a laptop.

How creatively effective can your social media impressions be as compared to your preceding events is also an important aspect to work on.