As the European events market continues to open-up, planners are reporting a surge in demand for the return of live or blended experiences. However, in November 2021 cases of Covid-19 are back on the rise, even in countries with robust vaccine uptake - signalling the continued need for a virtual alternative to in-person gatherings.
“The pandemic hasn’t gone away,” Felicia Asiedu, Senior manager, Europe Marketing at Cvent told viewers during a recent webinar, hosted by Mash Media’s Editorial Director, Martin Fullard. “If anything, there’s more uncertainty this year than last year. At least we knew where we stood in 2020 but now, there’s a growing sense of uncertainty, which makes planning for virtual a key requirement.”
Virtual (either stand-alone or blended with in-person) is also the more climate conscious choice.
One of the UK-impacted outcomes from the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow was for all companies with shares listed on the London Stock Exchange to come up with net-zero transition plans, which will be published from 2023.
The strategies, many of which will be audited alongside a company’s annual accounts, will need to include targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the steps which firms intend to take to get there.
If you’re an in-house planner, agency partner or supplier to one of these companies, your MICE-related activity will come under even greater scrutiny as a result.
Incorporating virtual components within in-person meetings and event programmes for the year ahead is therefore vital for reducing the impact of air travel, excess food wastage, accommodation emissions and printed delegate materials.
In order to successfully blend virtual with in-person, planners should plan activity around these four pillars of effective hybrid events - Audience, Content, Live and Community.
Let’s look at each in turn.
Audience
The days of audience generalisation are over. To deliver a first-class hybrid experience for both in-person and online, you need a deeper understanding of delegate profiles - their make-up, what their objectives for interacting with your event are, what types of content they would prefer to consume, and the venue or virtual environment they wish to interact in.
“Ask your database - are you more likely to do business with us if we remained virtual or do you need to be in a room with our salespeople?” Asiedu advises. “Supporting audience insights with strong data will allow you to allocate cost to those areas that will drive the biggest return on objectives.”
Although data is central to planning more effective, personalised experiences, the introduction of GDPR in 2018 means that transparency over permissions, what the information will be used for and how it’s stored is paramount.
Let people know that the information value exchange is purely to make the time they spend at your event a better experience, and how the requested data will be shared with stakeholders, such as sponsors (while providing an opt-out option).
Content
Once you’ve surveyed, emailed and spoken to your audience and gleaned a better understanding of what’s required from your event design, you can start to plan and develop content.
Effective hybrid events require content formats that will engage and stimulate audiences in different ways, so consider what should be live, pre-recorded and on-demand, and how formats should be presented (panel discussions, video, audio, presentations etc).
Content that benefits from audience interaction requires Q&A functionality, polls or the ability to broadcast virtual audience members onto screens to ask questions live.
“Avoid audience bias by ensuring that those in the room are interacting via the event app so that the presenter onstage is unaware of which questions are coming via the app and which are being asked via the platform,” Asiedu says.
“Be led by your audience goals and don’t get boxed into different definitions of what makes a hybrid event. Sky Sports doesn’t talk about ‘hybrid football’ and yet the way football fans experience a game and consume the content differently - depending on whether they’re sitting in the stands or seated at home in-front of the TV - is a good analogy to keep in mind.”
Live
Remember, in a hybrid event environment, the majority of attendees are likely to be online so brief on-stage presenters to speak to both audiences and ensure your production partner has different camera angles in place to provide a higher standard of broadcast.
The traditional rules to staging live events need no longer apply when it comes to hybrid so don’t assume everyone wants the same linear event experience.
Provide on-demand sessions or personalised streams that reflect your deeper understanding of audience profiles.
Build roadmaps and strategy around how you want your different audience types to interact and engage. And avoid the complacency of how events ‘used to be’ by building in more time to rehearse, more time to test the technology and greater flexibility with your venue for when in-person registrants switch to virtual and scenarios change.
“Don’t be shy about monetising both the virtual and in-person aspects, by again thinking of how sponsorship and advertising works in football,” Asiedu continues. “Online viewers are comfortable with being advertised to, so speak to your sponsors about the different ways they can reach both the people in the room and viewers online.
"If the sponsorship is relevant and adds value to the event experience, delegates will watch the pre-roll, discover content and follow-up on offers, wherever they are.”
Community
By definition, hybrid means that all content can transition online and be used to grow audience and develop a community that will choose how to engage with your event for years to come.
The hybrid experience no longer begins and ends with the physical event. Planners need to decide which channels to use and how to segment content to drive FOMO, educate, deliver extra value and build advocacy.
If your events only offer a single option to engage, or you only ever plan in a linear way, audiences will seek out digital alternatives and communities better suited to how the world around us has changed.
“We should never forget what we’ve been through and how we’ve had to up-skill and adapt as planners and marketers," Asiedu concludes. “Moving forward, we need to be a part of the climate crisis solution and embrace the digitisation of our industry for more personalised, sustainable events.”
