Reminiscing about when in-person events were a thing? Us too. If you feel like you’ve lived several lifetimes since those pre-pandemic days, you’re not alone. But with the development and rollout of three FDA-approved vaccines, a new administration in the White House, and a declining trend in daily COVID-19 cases, there is cautious optimism in the air as we collectively hold our breath and hope things play out in our favor.
It’s no secret that the events landscape has seen sweeping changes over the past year. For businesses used to planning and executing in-person, live events, this immediate and urgent shift to all-digital everything was… well, complicated. Now that we have a handle on making an art of the myriad ways we can connect people over the internet, compelling new opportunities have been unlocked. As the events industry grapples with how to bring back in-person events in anticipation of the next phase in the return to “normal,” we sat down with our Production team to discuss key insights into why hybrid events are here to stay, even after the masks come off.
Businesses are enthusiastic about providing a scaled-back live experience.
For those who long for personal connection, there exists a powerful opportunity for brands to be part of their audiences’ “re-entry” back into face-to-face human interaction. We anticipate enormous benefit to brands that provide their audiences with a safe way to connect. Ubiquitous feelings of confinement provide an unprecedented opportunity to create experiences that deliver true impact.
There’s still a fair amount of uncertainty.
Restrictions may be in flux for a while. This means we need to be ready to “meet people where they are,” and will likely need to do this for the foreseeable future. It’s the responsibility of event organizers to accommodate attendees of all kinds—and not everyone will perceive the same levels of safety or risk. This might include distributing more detailed floor plans (and perhaps even assigned seating), producing comprehensive COVID safety documentation, implementing appropriate safety protocols, and accommodating the wide range of attendee comfort levels.
Hybrid events provide the potential for a larger overall attendance.
Hybrid events offer the promise of achieving equity in ways never thought possible. No longer is attendance limited by mobility, health, or resources; we can now bring rich, vibrant communications and experiences to people wherever they are. The opportunity hybrid events present to facilitate equity across all groups is powerful. And this translates to greater potential reach and a greater opportunity for impact for every event.
Additionally, most platforms also offer tremendous insight into who’s joining, what they’re looking at, and who they’re talking to. This creates new insights for managers and leaders into who their audience is and what they care about, and helps power strategic business decisions for the future.
Events are still all about the audience experience.
It’s never been more important to create low-friction experiences—only now we’re doing that in two environments. Can something that used to take seven clicks to access be re-engineered to require only three? How will you maximize room layout while also accommodating six feet of distance between the speakers and all the attendees? Event organizers must try to ensure some level of parity between the in-person and virtual experiences. While it may be hard to offer both in-person and online audiences the exact same experiences, each group has advantages and opportunities the other does not. And neither can be ignored.
Hybrid means you’re producing two events.
It might be tempting to think critically about how the two “halves” combine to tell a coherent, focused, precise story. On the one hand, you have all the elements of an in-person event, such as food and beverage, transportation, venues, and on-site crews. But on the other, you’re simultaneously coordinating a robust online experience for attendees at home. This involves yet another set of crews, production, and likely, a virtual event platform. Two events are costlier than one, so when considering cost, recall the cost-savings tied to remote work (lower office costs) and funnel those resources to support rich and dynamic online-based group gatherings.
From Zoom birthdays to telemedicine to distance learning, we’re in this for the long haul, at least in many ways. This tectonic shift in the way we live, work, and socialize has created a brand-new segment of business in the form of online gatherings. If there’s a takeaway it’s this: it has never been more important to think critically about which stories we’re telling, and in what formats, to which audiences. And as we move forward with considering how to incorporate hybrid events into our daily lives, it remains critically important to remember that we’ve emerged out of the pandemic newly capable of telling bigger, more dynamic, and more accessible stories than ever before.