Live, Virtual or Hybrid Events? How to decide which channel is right for you

There will come a day when we stop talking about Covid – but today is not that day. Controversially, I believe that in the world of events, it might even have done us a big favour. It has shaken up the tired old formats that most people have been using since the day dot and has forced us to completely re-think the hows and the whys of our events. We now have an ever-expanding matrix of options at our disposal. Do we go back to live, in-person events? Do we stick with virtual? Or should we cater for every eventuality by going hybrid? Today, I’ll give you a simple guide to help you decide which format is right for each type of event.

I don’t need to tell you just how much Covid has changed the landscape for events and communications. We’ve all had to innovate and adapt how we do things. But just because we’re no longer in lockdown, it’s a mistake to think that you can just go back to doing events exactly how you did them before. People and the way they work have changed. Their mindset – and their attention span – have changed. Therefore, the way we communicate with colleagues and customers must also change.

Keeping everyone in the loop

Your internal colleagues are the heartbeat of your organisation but people are more isolated and disconnected from each other and your business than they have ever been before. Research by YouGov for the BBC states that 79% of senior business leaders and 70% of the general public don’t believe we will ever return to pre-pandemic office working in the same way. So, as comms professionals, we have to find new ways to maintain and grow our culture, to create employee advocacy and drive employee engagement. We need to do that through carefully thought-out comms and events.

The good old days

Let’s think about the old events model – The Big Bash – an annual corporate event that everyone turned up to. You would have a bit of an exhibition, maybe a couple of suppliers, and various keynotes delivered from a stage. There may be a party in the evening, followed by a stonking hangover the next day, then back to work. With this type of event, we talk about the Engagement Curve. In the build up to the event, comms would increase, you may reach out for questions from your workforce to drive the content. Engagement would rise before the event, up to a maximum engagement peak at the event (or possibly after 10 pints at the after party). The good thing was that, after the event, people would all go back to work together and would talk about it long afterwards – their experience and key takeaways. Engagement would gradually tail off before the whole process started again ready for the next event.

Not any more

Now, we have far less face-to-face contact with either leaders or colleagues. We have lost those watercooler moments, meaning that the Big Bash model alone won’t work any more. What we have to do as comms professionals is communicate regularly and consistently with a more disparate workforce, bringing them together for specific, focused events. The businesses that will succeed going forward will use a combination of live, virtual and hybrid event formats throughout the year. So how do you decide which format is right for each event?

A choice of event formats

Just to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing, let’s look at the simplybetter definition of event types.

Virtual events

So, with a virtual event, your presenters and audience are all separate and remote. Pretty straightforward really. It is accessible to absolutely everyone, it’s flexible and can be adapted at relatively short notice.

Broadcast events

There is tremendous power in bringing your presenters together into a live “TV studio” environment rather than all in their own remote locations as they would be on a virtual call. Broadcast events create the buzz of a live event and allows presenters to interact with each other in a more authentic way. The “One-Team” mentality these events produce is massive and they provide a unique experience that keep your audience engaged for longer.

Hybrid events

Now you have both your major presenters and a studio audience together while, at the same time, broadcasting to a wider, remote audience. So, not only do your presenters bounce off each other, your in-person audience provides real time feedback and interaction. This in turn encourages better interaction from your virtual audience. We will talk in much greater detail about hybrid events in a future post. Look out for that in a few weeks’ time.

Before you start planning any event

At the start of any process, simplybetter use a specific methodology. It’s very simple but it works really well for our clients and I would advocate that everyone uses it (of course I do). It’s called OMG – Objectives, Measures and Gains.

Objectives: What is the purpose of your event? What are you trying to achieve? Think – what do you want your audience to do differently as a result of attending the event?

Measures: How will you measure whether or not this has been a success?

Gains: What will the gain be to the business of these changes in behaviour? It could be more sales, higher staff retention rates, increased productivity, better staff engagement. It is important that you are able to present these gains to key stakeholders.

Which format for which event?

This diagram is a simple way to guide your decision making process. Think about what it is you want to achieve from your event. The further left you are on this chart, the more likely it is that a virtual event will be the best way forward. The further right you are, the more you will need to bring people together at a live event. None of this is rocket science and it’s not set in stone. It is a guide to help you get started.

For instance, if your audience needs simply to understand or get updates on the business, we now have the tech to do this virtually (thanks to lockdown). There is no need for everyone to travel long distances, which ties in with the massive drive towards better sustainability. It is accessible to all and there is no worry about transport, social distancing, childcare, etc. So, if you don’t really need to gather everyone together in one place, consider a virtual alternative.

If you need some form of emotional buy-in, go live if you can. Use the opportunity to crowdsource ideas, share challenges, get heads together to innovate and problem solve.

Remember, engagement is key

Whichever event format you choose, remember that audience engagement is critical. To capture and keep their attention, you need to change the way you talk to and interact with them. Find out how to radically change your running order – and what we can learn from TV shows in our earlier post - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/virtual-audience-engagement-what-can-we-learn-from-tv-rob-woodhead/

If you liked this you may also enjoy our recent webinar ‘Our guide to sustainable and accessible events 2022’ – watch the recording here: https://mailchi.mp/wearesimplybetter/webinar-replay

In the meantime, if you have any questions about your next event, why not drop me a message.