After the pandemic, many organizations and businesses are shifting toward virtual events. We managed to get through the storm and picked up many valuable lessons. Even if virtual events undoubtedly have their advantages, live events will always play a significant role in any comprehensive event program, according to one of the most significant lessons the event business has learned.

It’s time to consider a different kind of event right now: hybrid events. There will be instances where a virtual event is the only choice, like this global pandemic. There will also be circumstances in which a live event will be the most efficient way to gather leads and captivate your audience. Events that blend in-person and online components, or hybrid events, will be a crucial component of the new norm in the events sector. Since the pandemic, the majority of marketers and event planners are employing hybrid meeting solutions to incorporate virtual components into their live events. They are able to create leads and draw in a larger audience without exerting additional effort. In this session, you will find the basics of the hybrid event.

What Are Hybrid Events?

A hybrid event is a type of program that helps to fill the gap between in-person events and virtual events. In simple terms. A hybrid event is a combination of an online event and an offline event. If you include virtual elements in your physical event, it is known as a hybrid event. Hybrid event platforms play an essential role in order to organize an interactive and engaging hybrid event. The hybrid platform includes a wide range of interactive features such as live chats, polls, surveys, Q&As, and more. With these interactive features, a hybrid event can help you to offer a virtual experience.

If you want to bring your online attendees and in-person attendees in a single frame, hosting a hybrid event through a hybrid event software can be an ideal option for you. This type of event can help you to reach your target audience, increase brand awareness, promote your product or service, generate leads, and boost revenue.

Hybrid Events Are Here To Stay!

These events’ minimal entrance requirements enable organizers to reach the largest possible audience. This is owing to the fact that participants won’t be needed to travel, which they may be unable to accomplish due to health issues, financial constraints, or scheduling conflicts. A hybrid event may also accommodate more guests even if the venue has a restricted capacity, which can help you save money and the environment. Additionally, because you can offer both on-site and online marketing options, hybrid events give event sponsors greater value for their money.

For an in-person event to be successful, you need a lot of effort and money. Virtual events are simpler to organize, but they might not be as enjoyable for local attendees who would like to come in person. Everyone likes the hybrid model, which also offers a wide range of additional advantages. There are several kinds of hybrid occurrences, such as:

What Are The Types Of Hybrid Events?

Internal Hybrid Event

An internal hybrid event is a type of event that is organized by organizations. This type of event is beneficial for organizations’ internal staff such as partner employees, clients, and leadership. According to the geographic location of employees and the size of the company, it might not be possible to include every employee in the meeting or other events related to the organization. In this condition, Internal hybrid events play an important role. This type of event with hybrid event services allows remote employees and key internal staff to join at some time while practicing social distancing. Some common examples of internal hybrid events are given below:

• Larger team meetings
• Company spirit weeks
• Sales kickoffs
• Global town halls
• Annual Meeting
• Team-building exercises
• Workshop

External Hybrid Event

An external hybrid event is a second type of hybrid event that is used by organizations and businesses in order to target clients, prospects, sponsors, etc. Converting live external events into hybrid events allows organizations to gain more audience and decrease their carbon footprint. This type of event can be in the form of summits, product demonstrations, user conferences, industry conferences, and more. External hybrid events with hybrid show streaming software allow event organizers to generate leads.

When teams who are already collaborating closely attend a virtual conference and stream the meeting to viewers or participants from outside the team, external hybrid events are also excellent. The foundation of external hybrid virtual events is segmenting experience into “hybrid,” where collaboration isn’t just restricted to local participants in a virtual setup but also external, non-organizational persons. This also implies that the outside participants are interactive; as a result, they can take part in discussions at meetings or in poll questions, for instance.

What Are The Key Elements Of Hybrid Events?

Hybrid events allow event organizers to manage physical and virtual prospects seamlessly. In order to increase audience reach and boost engagement, you need to plan and execute your hybrid event very carefully. If you are going to host a hybrid event, you need to consider some key elements including

#1 Platform

Having an advanced and feature-rich platform is essential in order to host a hybrid event. Hybrid event hybrid conference platform or meeting platform play a significant role in order to bring your virtual audience and on-site audience in a single frame. This type of software allows event organizers or hosts to interact with both on-site and virtual audiences at the same time without any geographic restrictions. It is an important element of hybrid events that allow your audience to see, read, listen and access your content during the event. If you are going to host a hybrid event, you need to select a hybrid event platform that has the tools you require for your event, such as easy access, live chat, polls, Q&As, registration, networking tools, etc.

#2 Marketing

Marketing strategy is important in order to attract more audience and increase viewership. Marketing your hybrid event in advance will help you to attract both virtual and on-site audiences. With the value and brand image, your marketing strategy must be consistent for a better result. There are different things that can you can do in order to promote your hybrid event in advance including

• Create a landing page with important information
• Post on social media
• Paid ads on different channels
• Email marketing
• Content marketing (PR and blog post)
• Make use of social media banners
• Use Pop-ups across your site
• Use hashtags
• Promote speakers on your event page

#3 Engaging Content

A hybrid event may make your content even more crucial. Your virtual participants should participate throughout the event just as much as your in-person attendees must. Manage the content and general agenda of your speakers to ensure that they are all well-prepared and that their speeches are interesting.

#4 Registration

Registration for your hybrid event should go as smoothly as registration for an on-site event. So that potential attendees can quickly locate all the information about your program, create a branded event registration web page with the colors of your organization and the details of your program. For your virtual attendees versus your in-person attendees, create unique registration pathways so they may sign up for the right sessions. Lastly, keep track of people who left their registration unfinished and email them a reminder to do so.

#5 Audience Interaction

If you want to host a successful hybrid event, you need to interact with your on-site and virtual audience at the same time. You can conduct different engagement activities in order to keep your audience in your event and increase the engagement rate. Engagement activities can help your audience participate in the event and interact with hosts. Hybrid meeting solutions can help you to perform different interactive and engaging activities such as polls, Q&As, and more in real-time.

#6 Networking

When it comes to connecting in a more valuable way and maximizing leads, networking plays an important part in hybrid events. 70% of attendees join the hybrid event in order to create networks and interact with each other. So if you want to host a successful hybrid event, you need to provide great networking opportunities for both in-person and virtual events. You can achieve this by hiring a professional and experienced hybrid event service provider.  They offer a wide range of networking tools that can help you to create networks and interact with each other.

#7 Feedback

The audience’s reaction is crucial for understanding how the event went. For this reason, you might send a survey to your audience to see what they believe you can do better for the upcoming event, what conference or activity they enjoyed the best, etc. You will ultimately create and produce huge hybrid events in this manner.

#8 Data and Analytics

A consistent grasp of how your participants feel about your event is what keeps it fresh and ongoing. A tried-and-true method to enhance your events and make them more successful is to keep track of important data.

Recognize what your guests enjoyed and didn’t like about your event, collect that data, and use it to better understand their viewpoint and make the necessary adjustments to your future events.

The virtual aspect of your event is really effective at gathering and processing data, so make use of this feature for your virtual audience just as you may integrate some monitoring technology or even ask for feedback forms for your in-person audience!

Why Hybrid Events Matter

Greater Reach And Maximize Attendance

Hosting a hybrid event offers an opportunity to reach a wider audience without extra effort. On-site people can join physical events without any issues. On the other hand, people who can’t join in-person events due to travel costs, urgent work, or other reasons can join virtual events with the help of a hybrid event platform. It allows your virtual audience to access your content according to their convenience. This opportunity encourages more audiences to join your hybrid event.

Provide An Amazing And Positive Experience

The best of both worlds is provided by hybrid event software, even if physical and virtual events each have their own set of advantages and entertaining features. The virtual environment is simple to use and makes every effort to replicate the actual experience. A variety of capabilities, like 3D event halls, replayable webinars, networking chat rooms, and a plethora of other amenities, are offered by the hybrid event platform in the interim. This ensures that attendees, both physical and virtual, may take full advantage of the event without sacrificing convenience. Hybrid events are worth it because of the satisfying user experience.

Offer Sponsorship Opportunities

Your sponsors now have the chance to reach both your in-person and online guests since your event is a hybrid. They have now received two times as much publicity. Having a portion of your event hosted online opens up additional lead-generating and brand recognition potential. Your event will draw more sponsors if you provide your sponsors with greater benefits. This may assist in offsetting the technical expenses associated with managing a hybrid event.

Reduce The Event Cost

If you are looking for a cost-effective solution to host your event, hybrid events can be an ideal solution for you. On-site events include a large number of audience members. Due to a large number of in-person audiences, on-site events become more expensive. Hybrid events can help you to minimize event costs by decreasing the number of on-site attendees. It also helps to reduce expenses such as the cost of the venue, travel, catering, arrangement, staff, etc.

High ROI

Because of their greater accessibility and adaptability, hybrid events draw more attendees and sponsors, which boosts revenue significantly. The increased flexibility reduces financial risk because it is simpler to scale back in-person events.

Higher Engagement

Hybrid events help to include virtual elements in your in-person event. By doing this, it offers an opportunity to increase audience engagement and hold your audience in your event. Hybrid event platforms include a different engagement feature that allows the audience to ask questions, comment, like, share and interact with other people in real time.