What does a Hybrid exhibition mean?

There is a lot of noise around what the future will hold - what hybrid will be or mean, what will happen to exhibitions, what will happen to Virtual, will it all be ‘Hybrid’?. .Aaaggh!

The annoyingly trite answer is that it will be whatever you want it to be, and whatever YOU need it to be.

As a global events agency that has been running Hybrid for over 10 years and F2F for 21, we are of course incredibly excited about the industry reopening to in-person formats!

Virtual should not be jealous however. We have learned many things in the past couple of years, not least that Virtual can provide shared experiences in a powerful a way, but also that we have been able to develop and innovate a sleeping giant into a beautiful beast that does different things than its physical cousin. Not better, just different. It’s really exciting.

Every business we work with, indeed every department within each business, has different objectives, differing KPIs, and differing appetites and individuals therein. What is right for our clients that are looking for reach, brand awareness and to be positioned as thought-leaders is different from what is right for our clients who are looking to focus on using events (of all disciplines) to nurture suspects into prospects and then move them down the path to purchase.

How we use events & experiences, how we engage employees, customers and partners, how we integrate human contact into your marketing mix, depends entirely on our individual, departmental and business objectives. As a result, the future of the events industry will mean a different thing to each of us.

We are an ideas agency and there is no more fertile ground for ideas than a dynamic industry landscape, and this is what we are experiencing with events. We have all gone through some pretty interesting phases over the last couple of years and we genuinely would not have predicted being in a situation where we were having to build business cases for the return of the physical event or exhibition, over stand-alone virtual – especially seeing how much it has been missed by marketers and Sales teams.

Returning to what the future holds, we are driven by the desires of our clients, and they are in turn driven by the desires of their customers, so that seems like a good place to start.

What we DO know:

We know that physical events will be influenced by the following forces:

01. The appetite of the delegates to travel

02. How compelling the reason to attend a mass-participation event is

03. The stage of the delegate in their buying-cycle

04. The role of the delegate in the purchasing decision

05. The risk appetite of the delegate’s employer and subsequent travel & attendance policies

06. The local, regional and global restrictions based on the risk of the spread of disease

To balance these forces of caution, we simply cannot underestimate the significant forces of people’s desire to actually meet and see other people in person, engage socially, smell the coffee and touch the products. This coupled with the roll-out of significant preventative measures (like vaccines), the ability of humans to adapt and tolerate new norms, and the sheer effectiveness of in-person events will power the recovery momentum.

It is sometimes frightening how quickly people forget, or move-on from periods of intensity but this is also a very positive coping attribute that reflects our inherent resilience. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, back behind the OrangeDoor, we are still excited! - we got together (Virtually) to explore what the future could look like and here are some of our ideas and considerations:

Physical Stand Build Design

• Assuming that attendees will have to provide negative covid test results before the event, stand design should provide the feeling of space to make delegates feel safe
• Stand design should not look like it is forcing people into segregation, but integrate flow in a natural way
• Consideration needs to be made to keep stand staff safe from interaction or contamination in an open and friendly way
• More so, should we be minimising staff on stand? Would virtual assistants work in any scenarios? Bridging the physical/digital, meetings on the stand could be hosted by any expert anywhere in the world – specialists on hand to attend the stands, supporting from anywhere
• Stand purpose will reflect design (in the same way it always has!) but this may mean more meeting rooms/reception spaces for informal and booked meetings that reflect the role of the attendees within the buying decision-making unit. i.e. If exhibitions become attended predominantly by senior buyers making decisions, the quality of the reception needs to reflect this
• More AR and VR experiences to showcase products? If we are not able to touch and feel as much, alternative experiences will be required to make a lasting impression and get a ‘feel’ for the product or service

Virtual Integration

• Roving reporters at the physical event can tour the expo for the virtual attendees and ask questions live
• These roving reporters can accumulate relevant, on-the-floor content for exhibitors to use during and after the event, online
• More Virtual pods, giving physical attendees access to the virtual agenda if different to the physical
• Gamification tactics from event organisers to encourage exhibition touring and conversations with sponsors in teams – virtual and physical worlds – using app for both
• Voice-led technology on stand to avoid needing to touch anything
• As above, will we see the rise of virtual assistants on plinths (real people, but on a screen), who connect physical delegates with any expert ready at hand from a virtual vendor catalogue?
• Better and more opportunities for Virtual Partner and Channel partner representation on the physical stand – access to partner expertise onsite
• Hybrid/Virtual experience ambassadors or hosts available to support delegates online and off
• Every delegate is a virtual delegate up to the day – so ‘Virtual’ becomes a mode
• Much better use of curated content to support exhibition stands in the virtual world – better and more interactive content hubs specific to the conference/exhibition topic suite

Other Interesting Considerations:

Does the Virtual exhibition even have to happen at the same time as the physical? If Expos are going to attract fewer regional/global attendees, depending on travel restrictions, and become more local, who is to say we shouldn’t be using the Virtual expo as a global pre-qualifying content platform for delegates to research and interact with sponsors and exhibitors and qualify themselves to attend the local physical events?

This would give event organisers a realistic view on attendee numbers and profiles, and we can build the physical experiences to suit their specific profiles and needs, taking the expo to a location that works for the majority of qualified delegates.

This also has significant sustainability and modular stand-build implications. We could also be looking at innovating the attendance format – reducing free-flow exhibitions and introducing guided tour formats with controlled group numbers.

One of the positive outcomes from the industry having to innovate through necessity, is that one of the tools has got so much more powerful (Virtual) whereas another is still as powerful but will need to be used in different ways (Physical).

If you have found any of these thoughts interesting please DM me and I'd be delighted to have a chat about how we are helping our clients integrate events with their full marketing mix and navigate the new landscapes. It's good fun.