Hybrid events are defined as the infusion of live and virtual elements and technologies to create a synonymous experience. Hybrid events provide unparalleled outreach, experience, and longevity of the event by design.
But what hybrid event will best serve your audience and business outcomes? Let’s dig in.
Before we get into the actual event types that can be done, there are four main styles of how a hybrid event will take place and what it will provide.
Live Studio Hybrid Event
A common way of executing the hybrid event is the live portion of the event is done in a smaller and more controlled manner and live-streamed online. Virtual attendees may view the Livestream and interact or peruse through the rest of the event and network with other attendees.
This approach has been widely used for formats such as product launches. Presenting a new product to a live audience and several viewers watching online is the perfect storm to create a hype event.
Simultaneous Interactive Hybrid Events
This is the quintessential hybrid event experience where live and online audiences interact and attend together in real-time.
The simultaneous hybrid format works well for internal company meetings. All the info is readily available to everyone from global offices, and everyone can connect freely without much issue, even if they are attending online or on-site.
On-Demand Events
On-demand Hybrid events like a hybrid tradeshow or a hybrid confrence can be either on-ground or with a live audience. The event is made available after concluding as an on-demand event (hence the name). These are great for creating long-term benefits and community-building aspects of event hosting. Content created for these events is precious, so it can be essential to make the next event a success. They also serve as great ways to increase a company’s reputation.
On-demand events can establish your foothold in markets you try to break into. An on-demand event accessible and usable in marketing efforts can be distributed to the audiences you want to engage with to improve your authority and create thought leadership.
Hub and Spoke Hybrid Events
This type of event focuses on recording content ready for broadcast to audiences. This is done by bringing speakers, hosts, and presenters to a studio and sending the live capture to remote audiences. This is a somewhat different approach from the others but is equally, if not more effective.
Hub-and-spoke events are excellent for team meetings, training seminars, Q&As with experts, exclusive meet and greet, etc.
It is a great way to showcase your company/product/vision and a more professional way. The remote attendees can, of course, interact in real-time with the respective guests and star speakers.
Remote ‘spokes’ can also form breakout sessions to discuss the content, enhancing the experience. No matter where your team or audience is, they’ll receive the same high-quality, high-impact experience.
A few ways you can improve the fidelity of your hybrid events are as follows:
Providing Engagement options
A hybrid event is not just a Livestream of the in-person event. From the beginning, you can focus on creating experiences, encouraging connections, and enabling interaction through your hybrid event platform.
The right event platform, such as Sarcon, must provide features that more easily meld the two audiences: Features like Q&As, polls, live chat, rich text responses, etc.
Both audiences must be treated equally
While the objective of hybrid events is to provide almost the same experience as the in-person event to virtual audiences, the fact is that you still have two very different audience types. This must be remedied by clever use of all the features present on the chosen hybrid event platform and premeditating a sense of providing a unified experience before the event occurs.
Production Quality
High-quality video and live streaming are only part of the puzzle; many of the facets you provide to both audience types must be carefully considered to give a seamless experience. One single camera angle that shows the stage isn’t going to work. Find a partner with technical know-how and capabilities if you want to compete in this space. A platform like Sarcon allows for the unparalleled merging of live and virtual elements to provide a seamless experience to both the organizers and the attendees.
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