In 2021, the topic of hybrid meetings and events is everywhere. And for good reason. Even as improvements in the public health situation may allow for the return of in-person events soon, the need to reach and engage virtual audiences through at least 2021 will remain. As vaccinations gradually take hold, the reality is that many attendees may not feel comfortable attending large indoor and in-person events for quite some time. Strained travel and marketing budgets and shifting local, state, and national restrictions are likely to depress in-person attendance this year.
But it would be a mistake to view the hybrid event conversation solely through the lens of “have to”. Throughout 2020, three trends help illustrate the growing business case for hybrid events as the new standard for event design.
Planners and Marketers Joined Together
First, planners and marketers built execution muscles around virtual events. Through experimentation, teams became more familiar with how to design and execute in a virtual environment. PCMA estimates that 76% of planners executed a virtual event in 2020. Indeed, Cvent alone helped customers manage over 70,000 virtual events in 2020.
This growing digitisation of events brought planning and marketing functions together in important new ways. Marketers, with their digital backgrounds, seeing renewed engagement potential in this new event channel, contributing the digital skills and a marketer's definition of excellence. Planners were able to bring their event planning and design expertise to the virtual realm, driving new ways to engage audiences. The bottom line is that both parties worked together to optimise engagement through new experience design.
Clear Benefits from Hosting Virtual Events
Second, we collectively started to see the benefits of virtual events. Chief among these benefits is the undeniable reach advantage virtual can have over in-person events. It’s not unusual for virtual events to capture 6x – 8x the number of registrations compared to the equivalent virtual event. Additionally, many were pleasantly surprised by attendance rates and engagement levels in virtual events. That is not to say the virtual engagement levels eclipsed those possible from an in-person event. They did not. But virtual did prove itself to be a reliable way to reach and engage a large, diverse audience in a relatively cost-effective manner.
Constantly Improving Virtual Event Technology
Much of that engagement was made possible by the third trend: the tremendous improvement in virtual event technology. We’ve all read stories of how the pandemic compressed 10 years of technology innovation into 10 months, and that’s precisely what happened with virtual event platforms. As the pandemic wore on, planners, marketers and attendees demanded more interactive, immersive experiences. Event tech providers responded by building virtual event experiences that delivered vastly improved content and networking experiences. For virtual attendees, the technology IS the venue, and the venue got a lot more compelling.
6 Key Elements of Hybrid Meetings
As organisations look to combine the reach of virtual with the unparallelled engagement of in-person, the stage will be set for hybrid events. What is a hybrid meeting? Hybrid meetings will take many forms as organisations find the model that works best for their attendees, budgets, and ROI and are an option for hybrid conferences and small hybrid meetings. But at their best, hybrid events serve the unique needs of both their in-person and virtual attendees, while giving both a sense of a shared experience and value.
While there is no single “right” design for hybrid events there is a distinct set of building blocks that require special attention when you are dealing with in-person and virtual audiences. These key elements include:
- Marketing: Targeting different audiences with the right experience
- Venue: Partnering with your venue to deliver safe onsite experiences
- Content: Producing and delivering content for in-person and virtual audiences
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Community: Delivering shared experiences
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Sponsors and Exhibitors: Leveraging hybrid’s scale for awareness and lead generation
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Data & Insights: Capturing and activating data across your in-person and virtual audiences
Hybrid Meetings: One Event, Two ExperiencesTM
One event—two experiences. This is the reality of hybrid events that’s facing industry professionals as we forge our way through 2021. So, mastering these foundational elements and finding the right hybrid meeting technology will help you put you, and your organisation in the best position to succeed. For more hybrid event insights from planners, check out the Cvent Community. In the next post, we’ll introduce you to the first key element: marketing.
