We did it! We found a new venue with the requisite technology infrastructure to successfully showcase a hybrid event format and we staged The Hybrid Dilemma: when virtual meets reality.
You may remember, we had our own hybrid dilemma back in June when we were forced to reconsider this event following the postponement of International Confex.
At the time, we concluded that delegates will only feel confident of attending the in-person elements of conferences and education sessions once they’ve seen how our industry leaders can guarantee the staging of safe, live, accessible and engaging hybrid events.
So, with the help of The May Fair, owned by Edwardian Hotels London and our production partner Pixl, part of Entertainment Technology Partners (ETP) we hot-footed it across town to one of the capital’s largest private screening rooms and put the May Fair Theatre’s eight-metre screen, high-definition projection systems, and THX quality spectacular sound to the test.
The result saw 500-registered attendees online and 30 guests in the room, experience 90-minutes of informed discussion on the challenges and opportunities for planning and staging hybrid events.
Moderated by Senior Marketing Manager, Europe, Cvent Event Cloud, Felicia Asiedu, speakers included ETP’s President, Europe Paul Hutton, Edwardian Hotels London, Group AV and Technical Systems Director, Kathryn Soave and Cvent’s Event Manager for the day, Sabrina DeRizzio-Willis who all spoke about staging the event and the challenges involved.
First up though, Vice President, European Sales at Cvent Event Cloud, Jamie Vaughan and Regional Sales Manager, Cvent Hospitality Cloud, Konrad Pant set the scene by detailing an evolved planner landscape, featuring more focused contingency planning, the emerging role of the event technologist and new standards learned from broadcast.
Vaughan told delegates and viewers: “With technology playing such a key role in hybrid events, conversations now involve both marketers and CTOs. As a result, we’ve seen companies start recruiting event technologists to cover both disciplines and bring broadcasting skills to event marketing and management.”
Pant, who works with Cvent’s hotel supplier-base to help drive the recovery said: “Venues and hotels are in a race to get hybrid ready and reassure planners on both the safety of in-person delegates and their capabilities for communicating to a virtual audience.
“80% of our 30,000-strong respondents to last year’s Cvent Planner Sourcing Survey told us that health and safety is now the number one priority when souring a venue so it’s vital that hotels communicate clearly, concisely and often.”
During the discussion on staging The Hybrid Dilemma: when virtual meets reality, DeRizzio-Willis highlighted the logistical challenges of reassessing how much extra onsite space is now needed for camera set-ups, production desks, screens and back-stage crew. While Hutton stressed the importance of planners not getting bogged down in the technical aspects by using trusted partners.
Hutton told the online and in-person audience: “The model has been around for a long time and is used successfully across sports and live music. Event planners need to rely on our experience and expertise by partnering with a single point of contact who can put together a technical package that will support an event’s goals and objectives.
“The bandwidth required is dictated by the number of remote speakers, streams and associated devices so only partnering with venues who have invested heavily in de-risking their connectivity will be a key planning decision.”
When asked what the appetite for hybrid events was amongst planners, Edwardian Hotels’ Soave admitted that even before the coronavirus pandemic, there was a growing trend for virtual and broadcast elements that could reach a broader, more global audience.
This trend has only been accelerated by travel restrictions and will continue to be a factor as companies re-evaluate the desire and environmental impact of travelling to events.
“We now just need to work out how to better engage the virtual audiences,” Soave concluded. “The expertise and the platforms are in place so the tactics and creative ideas will follow.”
To register and watch the on-demand broadcast of The Hybrid Dilemma: when virtual meets reality, click here.
