The impact of Covid-19 is still looming worldwide, and the event industry continues to witness a significant transition during this period. Events of all types such as weddings, get-togethers, team-building activities, and corporate conferences are being held on a virtual event platform

If you ask an event planner when they plan to hold their next LIVE event, they would probably not have an answer to the question. The event planners are well aware that now the event industry has evolved into the event tech industry. This means that event planners have become virtual event planners, and events have now become ‘hybrid events’

As an event planner, you must quickly adapt to the new era of hybrid events, and if you wish to know more about hybrid events, this post will walk you through the details.

What are hybrid events? 

The meaning of the word hybrid is ‘mixture of two things.’ In the case of hybrid events, it refers to a mix of LIVE and virtual events. Hybrid events have a LIVE audience present for the event while streaming a LIVE coverage so that the non-present audience can see the event virtually. 

Another prerequisite of a hybrid event is that it needs to be engaging and interactive. So much so that people joining virtually can feel the event’s essence as if they are physically present there. According to a report, a whopping 97% of marketers are confident that hybrid events will be the way forward. 

Choosing a Virtual Event Platform for Hybrid Events

When you organize an in-person or LIVE event, you need to plan the venue’s details, sponsor booths, a stage for the audience, sponsors, and VIPs.  Similarly, when you plan a hybrid event, you need to consider the availability of all the above features for your virtual audience, sponsors, and VIPs. 

Let’s have a look at a virtual event platform where you can host your hybrid events with ease:

FLOOR – An innovative virtual event platform

If you wish to make your virtual/hybrid event life-like, FLOOR is the best platform for you. It is an event space where your virtual audience can attend the event, network, interact, visit sponsor booths, discuss, interact, and much more.

Here are some features of the FLOOR that make it the best virtual event platform:

Speaker Engagement

When one or more of your keynote speakers join you virtually, it becomes all the more critical that the video streaming is of the best quality and free of any glitches. FLOOR, powered by 10times, has the perfect, high quality LIVE streaming option to enchant your attendees, in-person and virtual. They can join the stage on the virtual event platform and become a part of your hybrid event. If they wish to distribute handouts to the virtual audience, that can be done with the handouts option.

Sponsor Engagement

One benefit of a hybrid event is that it can bring more sponsors on-board. How? While your real-time event can have banners, pamphlets, and sponsor booths, your virtual event can also give the spotlight to your sponsors. 

On FLOOR, your sponsors can customize their virtual booths with their logo, company name, and detail. They can interact with the visiting audience and advertise. Other than that, there are features such as sponsor ticker, banners, and videos that the in-person attendees and virtual attendees both  can witness. 

Attendee Registration & Engagement

Your LIVE event’s tickets can be handled effortlessly, but how can you manage the registration of the audience joining you virtually? FLOOR provides a ticketing and registration counter for you to keep track of the attendees throughout the event.

In terms of boosting interaction and engagement with both your audiences, FLOOR provides various features you can use to make your hybrid event enjoyable. 

 Some of the features available on FLOOR are

• QnA 
• Polls
• Discussion Board
• Raise a Hand
• Chat Options

Things that differ in a Hybrid event and In-person event:

1. Larger Spaces

The LIVE part of your hybrid event needs to be carefully planned in addition to the virtual event platform. It is vital to give up smaller banquet halls and stuffed lounges for a LIVE event. 

Switching to larger spaces like big lawns or halls will help in 3 ways;

• It helps maintain the social distancing protocols for your in-person attendees.
• The extra space will be useful to place the equipment required to stream to the virtual audience effectively.
• Space can be used to present remote speakers on a big screen as well.

2. Faster and Secure Wi-Fi

It is important to note that your hybrid event will be reduced to a physical event without the presence of a high-end Wi-Fi connection’s availability. Almost all of the equipment you would require to connect the virtual speakers to the LIVE audience and the LIVE speakers to the virtual audience require an effective and seamless Wi-Fi connection.

3. Compact Sessions

During a hybrid event, you are catering to two types of audiences: the in-person attendees and the virtual attendees. While the in-person attendees can be receptive to extended sessions, it is not easy to hold the virtual audience’s attention for a very long time.

Thus, the best way to captivate both the audience is to schedule shorter value-packed speaker sessions.

4. Dedicated Virtual Query Handler

While raising a hand is relatively easy to notice and call out in the LIVE events, it can be challenging to keep track of the comments, questions, and hands raised on the virtual event platform.

If you have a vast virtual audience, it would be best to appoint a dedicated handler who handles and responds to any social media queries, hands raised, and comments during the keynote sessions or breakouts. 

It would be safe to say that virtual event platforms will have a continuous demand in the coming years. Experts predict that virtual reality conferences will soon be a thing companies will adapt to. Event planners are continuously shifting  to hybrid events, which is the most popular type of event these days.