5 tips for running a hybrid event

A hybrid event, even though more common now, isn’t always the right way to go. It’s so easy to go in thinking this needs to be an element you MUST offer, but that’s not necessarily the case for every event. Look at what you are trying to achieve from your event and what you want the experience to be for your attendees.

As a note though, with a lot of uncertainty with events, it is great to have a backup!

Like any partners, you team up with, make sure that a streaming company takes the burden away from your internal team (unless you already have the skills needed!). We didn’t have the capacity, nor expertise in the streaming realm, so our initial trepidation and research into what we needed to do to run a seamless stream quickly showed us that going with an outside company was the way to go!

We got high-quality footage for the event aftermath, and it also took the pressure off of the marketing team so we could all really focus on our individual tasks and making the event the best it could possibly be the day of.

It is also important to bake this into the cost of the event as a few years ago this wouldn’t have even come into consideration! When we ran our hybrid event in October, we created the streaming onto our own website to ensure that people were navigating onto our website and were able to find out more about us if needed!

Hybrid events have become a ‘thing’ due to the pandemic, however, it is also vital that your IRL event has been thought out to ensure people feel safe. As we have all seen over the past 20 months, anything to do with COVID is constantly changing and evolving. Make sure you are keeping an eye on current government regulations and your event “reads the room” when it comes to having measures in place to make attendees feel safe and comfortable.

Hiring out a larger venue than needed and having hand sanitiser at the front door are a couple of small steps you can take to ensure that your guests are worried.

When you have a hybrid event, you have two different audiences so you need to make sure that both experiences are great. Use platforms like Slido so that both audiences can get involved as it is as interactive as you can make it. Also, a key element is engaging with both audiences, so giving the virtual attendees a little shout out is a must!

Both audiences need to have the right information to make joining the event, whether virtually or in real life, as easy as possible. In this case, we are firm believers that more is more! Whatever platform you use to communicate with your attendees, give them every little bit of information they could possibly want. As we had two different audiences we made sure the IRL and virtual attendees had their own communication sequence to make their attendance as seamless as possible.

You want it to be a delightful experience to make sure that the audiences think highly of your event and organisation, rather than a frustrating experience. Give them as much information as you can so that the event is a complete success!

But as is the way with events, you know you can expect some sort of zero-hour issue to crop up and stress you out. Just remember to keep calm, and get your event on! You’ve done your homework, prepared within an inch of your life and have all contingencies covered. Don’t sweat the small stuff and enjoy your event as much as you can because it’s over before you know it.