The New Event: lessons learnt

After 6 months of conference postponements, exhibition cancellations, digital coffee breaks, webinars, online courses and the first tentative digital events, I've finally experienced the first "proper" New Event, ie. one that embraces the need to connect while keeping us healthy.

The call came late in August. "Could you moderate Green Tech Live and Online in October for us?" Oh, another Zoom webinar. My interest was ... limited. "No, no, we are meeting live and in person in Amsterdam, just with the audience online. This will be a first for us and the start of a new era", said Mariska Dreschler from RAI (one of the world's leading exhibition companies). My interest was piqued.

@knowh2ow, we've been preaching the virtues of transforming the way we meet as large groups for vocational knowledge sharing, networking and creation of opportunity for some months and now was the chance to put those principles into action.

These are my findings.

1. The digital audience is brutal

Compared to having a captive audience that concentrates (almost) fully when sat in an auditorium, online viewers can more easily leave – literally switch off. And if they don’t switch off, they may be distracted or doing multiple other tasks in parallel. No matter how interesting our topic is and how well we speak, an online viewer is the most difficult one to entertain. And entertain we must. Here are some guidelines from my speakers' briefing:

DO NOTs.

• Sessions should avoid creating negative emotions by making sure they are not boring, too long, too rushed, too ego-centric, irrelevant or outdated, or commercial
• Do not spend time on introductions. Let the moderator do it
• Do not spend time on anything that the viewer could see on the internet. Use time for meaningful interactions.
• Do not use video playbacks, except for a dramatic and disruptive statement to stir up the discussion or a case study.
• Do not do a PPT presentation. Graphs and images are OK to support the discussion. But people are the stars, not Microsoft.

It’s about engaging with the audience, not broadcasting 

DOs.

• Start with the purpose. The why. Then the how. Maybe the what. And prove the points made.
• Use "Champions" to set the scene, challenge assumptions and give a sense to the session (thought leaders, clients, partners, analysts).
• Give thoughtful inspiration.
• Deliver professionally with empathy for the audience and societal context of the subject matter.
• Show emotion and personality, be authentic. The audience is looking for a connection.

Ideally, we are looking for sessions of 15-30 minutes in length, led by a big challenge or market driver, with solution descriptions that focus on the value, proof points and a call-to-action for the audience to follow up.

Questions are dealt with during the session (also from the audience) and not at the end, as that is when everyone will tune out.

Using audience participation tools, like Sli.do or Mentimeter, will keep engagement high and provide valuable insights for the studio conversation.

2. Rethink the session format

No way people are going to tune in for hours at length, that's clear. We broke the sessions down to a maximum of 30 minutes and gave the speakers multiple opportunities to address their audience. That meant more contact possibilities, also for different time zones, and a shorter, snappier session. On average at Green Tech, people tuned in for 24 minutes. We also made each session independent to the others, as many will be watching on-demand. No links to the previous or subsequent sessions, no assumption that people have seen any other session but the one we are in now. Just link the content from other sessions where pertinent: "we've heard a lot about (topic A) in previous sessions, with the overall sentiment being....". And no assumption that anyone will watch everything.

I personally love the BBC programme HardTalk and modelled many of our sessions around Stephen Sackur, showing our protagonists this example:

I think the most engaging one-to-ones were "HardTalks"

This gives them the chance to have their messages "stress tested" and not to have to explain their own brilliance themselves.

Other session formats included Dragon's Dens and TEDTalks using a Champion, and in many cases we did use images or videos to present a topic (to me) before exploring it in an interview (but no powerpoint lectures).

3. Preparation times four

To moderate a pre-2020 conference, you'd expect roughly the same amount of time (without rehearsals) preparing than the actual "broadcast" hours, eg. for a 3-day conference of, say 20 hours in total, something like 20-30 hours of prep: understanding the themes, knowing the speakers, structuring the sessions, outlining the content, defining audience interaction, writing your moderator cards and programming your brain. For this event, it was FOUR fold, ie. about 80 hours.

Why? It starts with a paradigm shift, getting the speakers and their communication officers to understand the above two lessons (digital audience and how to engage). Then follows an intensive content study, both of the main themes of the event, as well as the content of each speaker. Individual consultations helps build this, but take a lot of time when you speak to each speaker for at least an hour each. Only from that can the correct format for delivery be defined, and once more discussed with the protagonists. As it's all new, the review and approval process takes longer, with more iterations. Finally, as a moderator you have a programme that can be published and start the usual "learning your lines". You've got to resist making changes then, though, as trying to unlearning and re-programme content and messages inevitably leads to mistakes.

I will be more insistent and strict when it comes to deadlines next time.

Deadlines are really important for any event, but especially for a hybrid, as there are so many more interdependencies. Deadlines are generally earlier than traditional conferences. You can't just show up with a USB stick and want to deliver a speech (see above). Some speakers were able to wing it and the moderator can compensate to a certain extent, but it was usually quite obvious who had prepared well and in time, and who not. On a selfish note, I prefer to spend time before the event doing this, and not for hours through the night after a gruelling 8 hours full-on in the studio, ahem.

4. Easier to deepen a conversation

The extra preparation pays off. I found our conversations richer, more engaging and less scripted than standing on a stage with hundreds/thousands of eyes on you. Many speakers came with anxiety, but soon settled and left relaxed. Much more so than in a packed conference hall. You could focus more on the issue at hand and not be distracted.

Online speakers were easy to include and it saved them the financial and environmental cost of travelling.

The one thing we missed was a round of applause

Reading this, App developers? I'm sure we can get something going that allows an audible feedback from the online audience, right? (btw, you could then scale this up and sell it to sport organisers so competitors are not quite so alone in the stadia!).

5. Challenging to make a new connection

Some things seem irreplaceable, though, especially the more spontaneous, unplanned opportunities that arise in social environments. That chance introduction, connection and building a memory is hard to do (impossible?) virtually. In the case of Green Tech, many of the protagonists know each other well. The hybrid event actually allowed for a deepening of those relationships. Many are going through the same challenges. And many have seen Green Tech as an important focal point for their community. Not only a place where everyone gets together yearly, but something to protect, support and nurture. I've observed the same at other events, notably WEX Global hosted by my (and many other water professionals') friend Mark Barker. It goes way beyond the sense of having to be there "just because everyone else is" or to generate leads, etc.

If an event does not have this extremely loyal following, it may be more difficult to get the level of engagement needed. And certainly more difficult to commercialise the event and pay for the cost of it. My understanding is that Green Tech was able to generate a humble but satisfactory revenue to sustain it for the future. That is an achievement to be proud of, as I believe most events in 2020 have had a negative economic result.

When the community defends an event and supports it almost blindly, you know you've got a good basis for success in any format

Green Tech also benefitted from substantial support not only from businesses, but also from science and government. The "triple helix", as the Dutch describe their symbiotic unification of all the parties needed to make a sustainable approach, was very evident.

6. Studio safety easy

Setting up a safe environment in the broadcasting studio is an important concern, but actually relatively easy to do, assuming you are allowed to congregate a dozen people or so.

1. Ensure the room is large enough and has good ventilation (in this case it was an air-conditioned exhibition hall)
2. Set-up the furniture and equipment to be able to observe 2m of distance between everyone. Mark standing and seating positions so people don't wander around.
3. Be especially careful when the sound engineer has to get close (fresh set of gloves, don't face each other, masks)
4. Enforce mask wearing, hand disinfection, furniture disinfection (for every speaker change), no food or drink or belongings, physical distancing, "ebola elbow" greetings only and a pre-signed report that guests are fit and would communicate any subsequent illness to the organiser immediately.

Once seated and set-up, everyone was comfortable and felt safe so we could do our job.

Personally, I am blessed by a robust testing scheme in Germany. Both my pre-event and post-event tests were negative, giving me the confidence that I was not endangering anyone there, or afterwards at home. I chose a hotel in Amsterdam with strict sanitary standards, wore a mask everywhere and disinfected my hands regularly.

7. The crew is key

Not only for a hybrid event, but having a well functioning team behind the cameras is essential with them additionally looking after online speakers, live streaming and audience polling. The team from ACS were on the ball each and every time. The lynchpin is the show director, or show caller as the brilliant Audrey Boeff calls herself in the Netherlands.

Having confidence in the technical crew means you can concentrate fully on the job in front of the camera

8. Virtual reality engagement needs some work

Beyond the knowledge sharing, attendees want to get to know technologies, solutions, services. They want to meet the people behind them. I've seen many examples of digital booths and matchmaking tools, some using virtual avatars. But not one has, for me, been more than a gimmick so far.

It's time to get the gaming industry involved in building our communities

9. A wider, sustained outreach and continuum

One of the big frustrations for participants and organisers is that an event is like Christmas: lots of anticipation ultimately leading to an anti-climax once it is over for another year. A hybrid event lives on longer. Sessions are recorded and provided on-demand, social media conversations carry forward the debate and connect attendees, and the event outcomes are ultimately not over at the closing ceremony.

RAI has engaged heavily on content proliferation in the water space, with Aquatech Online. I admire this 360° approach, not only because another good friend, Tom Freyberg, is directing the content, but because it links everything together over time and means all the energy invested in the few hours of being together every year is not simply dissipated. We all want to spend our precious time wisely, and this makes a big difference.

Conclusion

This is not a one-off invention. This hybrid approach, born from necessity, has distinct advantages over pre-2020 events. The (enlarged) audience gets richer content and can engage more easily, without having to travel. The speakers find it less daunting (if well prepared) to express themselves and get their messages across. If we can get someone to develop an applause/boo app we’d feel the love/heat even more in the studio and increase the entertainment value. Yes, there is more onus on the tech crew, the moderator and the corona officer, but that is all doable.

It’s just the personal, unplanned connecting and networking that is hard to replace. Maybe gamification can help. And having some element of on-site audience, too (RAI Amsterdam has the capacity for a physically distanced auditorium of up to 1,000 people when government rules allow for it). Augmenting a strong conference with effective and enjoyable networking and exhibiting is still a construction site.

The possibility to build a regular content exchange is a golden opportunity. Instead of a firefly appearance, the event becomes part of a larger continuum and an even stronger element of the community it serves.

Congratulations to the Green Tech team and thank you for putting your faith in me as moderator. I was happy to bring in the ideas we’ve been spinning in our own marketing community during these interesting times and curious as to the next steps. It was also a delight to get to know the horticulture sector, which is doing a super, super important job. Having recently changed my own diet to be mostly plant-based, I was keen to learn about food trends, greenhouse cultivation, indoor urban farming and how the sector is making production efficient, healthy and local.

This was a pioneering moment, at least for me. And to see that the event was not given away for free, and therefore has economic potential to be sustainable is a significant outcome. This was driven by the conviction of the horticulture community. Events without such loyalty would struggle. New events, too. But then are they really relevant?