Behind the Black Curtain: 10 Secrets for Producing Your Best Hybrid Event

Hi, I'm Erica St. Angel, and I'm delighted you've chosen to

join us today for today's webinar.

It's 10 Secrets For Producing Your Best Hybrid Event.

And I'm so excited to have Tahira Endean here with

Cantrav Services.

And she's gonna talk to us about her 10 tips and also

some great case study material from an event that she

recently produced, a hybrid event,

called Event Camp Vancouver.

A little bit of housekeeping before we get started.

You'll notice there's a little polling button in your

Mediasite player in the lower right.

And you can click on that and take our poll.

The question is have you done a hybrid event, or are you

planning to do them.

So if you want to click on that at any time

and take the poll.

And you also then go back and view the results of the other

people who are watching.

You can also ask a question at any time.

There's a little speech bubble.

If you click on that, you can ask a question.

And we'll take them throughout, but probably

mostly at the end.

Because she's got a ton of material to cover and a short

time to do it.

And this presentation that you're watching right now will

be available on demand.

You just click the same link that brought you here today.

You can also use the little envelope button to share it

with anybody that you want to forward it to or if you want

to tweet it out.

And we do have a hashtag for today's event.

We're using #hybridevent.

There's a little links button, it looks like paper clips.

And if you click on that, you can actually click through to

see the Twitter stream.

Even if you're not actively tweeting, you can see what

other people are saying about hybrid events on Twitter.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tahira.

Well, Erica, thanks for having me here.

It's great.

First of all, Madison is lovely, as is your studio.

And I'm excited to talk about hybrid events.

I really think that it's the future where events are going.

I think that it's just going to be where we're going to

start to see our content being delivered more.

So yeah, we're going to talk about some tips

for producing them.

First thing is start with why.

So why do you want to have a hybrid event.

Is it something you want to do because it's going to be a way

to deliver content to more members?

Is it going to be a way to bring your corporation

together and to do it in a way that you can reduce your

travel costs?

And also what do you want to deliver from it?

And how do you want to engage your face-to-face audiences

and your remote audiences.

So always starting with why is, with any event, the most

critical thing.

One of the first things that we did was we started to talk

about how we were going to plan the structure and how we

were going to integrate the two audiences.

So the large worksheet that people are looking at is the

one thing that worked really for me as a planning tool.

It's the first thing that we did to really look at what are

we doing, when we were doing it, where it was going to

happen, and what were the learning objectives and

takeaways from every single session.

It was also the kind of document that everybody that I

sent it to--

well, you told me that you studied it,

which was very nice.

Most people were just like, just tell me

the piece I'm doing.

But it is great to have one place that you're really

figuring out how are you integrating your audiences.

With the case of Event Camp Vancouver, what we decided to

do was to start-- on Friday, we did it as a very low-tech

event on the Friday.

And then we decided that we would actually only do the

hybrid portion on Saturday morning and Sunday morning and

leave Saturday afternoon just focused on the

face-to-face audience.

So that was part of our planning, and our structure,

and the way that we wanted to integrate those audiences.

And a lot of the reason we did that was so that somebody who

was attending it as a virtual attendee didn't have to be

there and give up an entire Saturday.

They were gonna make a different commitment on a

virtual level than a face to face.

So just thinking about, as you go through it, how

you want to do it.

Of course, there's the ideal event timeline.

The ideal event timeline with any hybrid event that we would

absolutely recommend for anybody is that you're gonna

set up the day before, you're gonna do a rehearsal with your

key hosts and your key participants and really run

through and test all your lines.

Make sure that any of your integration technologies are

really working.

And then the next day, you're gonna open up with your

morning session, and you're going to

launch your hybrid event.

And it's gonna be quite fabulous, and everything is

gonna work perfectly.

What we did was we started loading in at 4 o'clock in the

morning with our AV team, and with Sonic Foundry, and with

all of our partners.

And we went live at 8:15.

So that's not the recommended timeline.

But if you are gonna do that, you just need to make sure

that everybody knows exactly what the plan is and how

you're gonna execute on that.

So that was a critical piece for us.

Tying right into that is choosing trusted partners.

So you can see there, there's our Sonic

Foundry website set up.

There's their Mediasite.

There's AV Strategies who worked with us with the

convention center and with Bell.

So we had to have a lot of pieces in order to make the

hybrid event happen.

We had to have the right venue.

We had to have the right internet technology to make

sure that we were gonna have enough bandwidth to do what we

needed to do, which you don't need as much as you think you

might need.

You can actually do it in a very manageable bandwidth.

But in addition to what we were doing with we had

presenters skyping in, we had the Mediasite going out.

We also had everybody in the room using their mobile to

engage in a number of different ways.

So you have to have enough wireless and wired bandwidth

to cover that.

And really making sure that you're working closely with

the people who are gonna make that happen.

So the venue, the internet, with Sonic Foundry, with AV

Strategies, and just really making sure that everything is

really integrated and that everybody's talking, and

talking the same language, and making it all happen.

We really worked to create a collaborative space that was

gonna start from before the meeting and go through during

the meeting and after the meeting.

So that was with the collaborators that worked as

part of the team.

That was also with the people who were the presenters.

And also engaging the community.

We wanted people to know who was there.

We wanted them to really be participating in the event,

both face to face and remote, and integrating the two

audiences together.

So there was some interaction with the different people who

were playing.

And that's a critical piece for a hybrid event because you

need to have people talking and sharing.

The idea of a hybrid event is generally, to me, that you're

now taking your face-to-face conference, and you really

expanding that audience.

And the only way to expand that audience is to really

approach it from a very open and collaborative space all

the way through.

So we started before.

So really planning with the people who are going to be

part of the success.

So you'll see up there, we decided that for Event Camp

Vancouver, with out hybrid event, that our key focus was

gonna be on collaboration.

We really wanted to set the tone at the very start of the

first hybrid event, as soon as we launched with that.

And so we had Glenn there, who was our host, who was

fantastic, and did an excellent job.

That's a key piece of it is having somebody who can talk

to your face-to-face audience, but also engage the virtual

audience and keep the two streamed together.

So before the event, we set down with Glenn and with Ruud

Janssen who's up on the screen there.

Ruud joined us from Switzerland.

And so what we had to do was to really figure out, how is

that going to work.

How are we gonna talk about collaboration with our

face-to-face and our remote audiences in a way that was

meaningful when we had one person in the room and one

person up on a giant screen?

So we spent some time planning ahead using Google+.

So we did a Google+ Hangout.

So using the tools that were available to us, doing a slide

share, so could share the different slides

that we would be using.

And talking our way through how that session was gonna

look and work, and how we would be able to work with

both audiences.

So that becomes part of the before planning.

During it, to have a successful hybrid event, you

really need to think about both audiences and really take

care of the remote audience.

So we had three streams for doing that.

And we did that.

On one side, you'll see Marc Smith.

He was our social media concierge.

So Marc monitored the Twitter stream and really connected

the two audiences, the audience that was in the room.

As people were coming up with both comments and with

questions, he could stand up from his position, and

represent the remote audience in the room, and ask the

questions of what was actually happening, and keeping it

really live time.

And then we had Liz King come in from New York.

And how we worked with Liz was there was a lot of times-- and

you know because you were there-- was when we would talk

about what we were gonna talk about, for example,

collaboration, and then we would break into smaller

groups within the face-to-face audience.

We wanted to make sure of two things.

We wanted to make sure that we were keeping the remote

audience engaged during that time that we were working in

small groups within the room.

We also wanted their feedback and their thoughts and for

them to be able to collaborate and collectively work with us.

So Liz essentially worked on the Twitter stream with the

remote audience.

So when we did a session on challenges and solutions, she

led that chat.

So she really focused and hosted that portion of it.

And then of course, Erica, you were there and monitored the

the Mediasite stream.

And so you were sitting right beside Marc.

And then you could also work with him.

And as people came up with comments or

questions, bring that in.

So we really wanted to make sure that the two audiences

did feel integrated, that the remote audience knew that we

were paying attention to what they were offering and sharing

how they were collaborating with us, and that we could

bring that to the audience.

We also really wanted to take advantage to bring in the best

presenters for the topics that we'd identified.

And you can do that really easily with a hybrid event.

Because we were no longer locked into somebody has to

fly there to join us, they have to

present from the stage.

It's fantastic when we have an opportunity to have a

presenter in front of us working with us.

But sometimes when somebody has a specific content

knowledge, the idea of webinars and bringing people

in in different formats really, really works to help

support the content.

So in this case, this was a session on social media and

how you can use social media to develop your personal or

professional brand.

So KiKi L'Italien with DelCor was on the stage talking about

her experience and sharing her stories around that..

Pink Deb Roth--

as you guys will know her as PinkDeb on Twitter--

has a very interesting story.

Because, of course, she has gone from a very large

corporation and having her own into a larger corporation

really balancing what that brand is.

So great story that we wanted to share, but she had to be in

California.

So we were able to take half an hour out of her time, while

she was in California, skype her in.

And she could, again, interact with the

audience in both ways.

So that they could ask her questions, she could answer

them, her and Kiki could talk back and forth.

So we were able to use that hybrid format to create a

different kind of connection.

Some of the ways that we integrated the live and the

remote participants were through using the Mediasite,

through using Twitter, and through using Skype.

And so we had a Montreal pod.

And I will tell you guys that when we started planning, and

Montreal said, we want to be a pod, I said, no.

And I said no because taking on a hybrid event had a lot of

layers and complexities.

And I was like, one more thing.

And so once we started to break it down, and put

together some of the tools, and out together our

timelines, and really map out how we would integrate the two

audiences, I said, yes.

They asked again.

And I said, yes.

Because I could see how they could add to the experience.

So they had a pod set up in their office.

They could watch on Mediasite, as well as they

could watch us on Skype.

And when we had interactions, for example, with the

challenges and solutions, when they came back to us with

their solutions, we'd put them up live.

And they could interact again with our audience.

So Glenn could ask them questions about what solutions

they'd come up with.

They could answer back in real time.

It worked very effectively to bring in their contributions.

On the other side, we used a little tool called PiratePad.

It's a great name because it's a free software.

And when Ruud and Glenn were doing their session and we

wanted another way to collect

comments, we used the PiratePad.

And anybody who was in the room in the face-to-face

audience or anybody that was part of the remote audience

could type in their comments.

It's one still big, existing collection about ways we can

collaborate better.

When the live audience is breaking, you want to make

sure that you've got a plan for the remote audience to

remain engaged.

You can either put a slide that says, take a break, we'll

see you in 15 minutes.

And that works too because it's good for both audiences

to have a bit of time away.

But you also want to create some opportunities.

So in this case, we were doing an interview with some

students about sustainability.

They're taking an event sustainability class.

And they had to do an interview, and so we chose to

do it as part of this forum with Mariela.

And I will say though that the Event Camp Twin Cities and

Even Camp Europe both did a fantastic job, where they had

the Sonic Foundry hotspot desk.

And they had Emily and Glenn doing interviews that were--

just [? through ?] an audience that was watching interviews--

having attended both of those virtually--

I thought those were fantastic.

So we tried to do a little bit of that.

But I would say that they really did an exceptional job.

We also wanted to make sure for the hybrid event that we

were focusing on live engagement and collaboration.

So one of the sessions that we did, we had

Mary Boone skype in.

So we did a design session.

So we had presenters on the stage.

Tom Stulberg and Ivana Cappelletto talked about event

design from their experiences that [? 2D ?]

3D perspective love.

Mary Boone has so much fantastic knowledge about

meeting design.

And we really wanted to be able to capture some of that.

Again, for her to come from Connecticut was just a bit too

much and just taking that time out.

But she was able to skype in, do her presentation, again,

answer questions in real time as part of the panel

presentation wrapped up.

And what we did, and what you'll see there, is that is

actually that laptop on the table is Mary by Skype joining

a genius bar.

So we took that event design session, we broke it into five

genius bars.

So you'll see there's one on either side on that slide.

And one of them is face to face talking about technology.

And the other is Mary on Skype talking about meeting design

and being able to interact with the group.

So they eventually did turn that laptop.

So everybody was looking at Mary, and she

was looking at everybody.

And just a great way of, again, simply integrating

technology.

And we were able to, again, capture

this session happening.

And it becomes part of the catalog as well.

Again, going back to choosing trusted partners, it's also

choosing the right technology and the partners that are

gonna support the objectives.

So we always go back to that.

You'll see there's a couple of links.

I know Erica has put those same links up as part of the

webinar's link section.

That particular link talks about all of the technology

that we used and how we used it.

Who you'll see speaking there is Trevor Roald, so not only

did we do a hybrid event that connected the audiences from

literally around the globe.

Can I interrupt you for one second?

We just had a comment that your microphone had slipped

beneath your jacket.

So if we could have you replace that.

Sorry about that.

I know audio is really important.

Audio is really important.

We're gonna talk about that in a minute.

Exactly.

So thank, sorry to interrupt you.

No, that's OK.

That's point seven, I think.

So we jumped ahead.

We did jump ahead.

So choose the right hybrid event technology and the

partners that are gonna support your objectives.

So Trevor with QuickMobile is there.

So not only did we have a hybrid event, where we had all

of the other things going on.

We also had an app that ran through the entire event.

And that app had a game that ran through the entire Event

Camp that could be played by people who were

there live with us.

Or they could download it if they were remote and play

along with us as well.

And [? game ?] points, we created it around just called

Get Your Green On.

So it was around seeing what you were doing on a daily

basis and as part of the event that was a sustainable choice.

And so our remote participants were also able to--

they actually had their own stream where they could win

their own prize.

So that was another layer that we put in

to the overall event.

And it really is about choosing the technology that

works through.

And so with every piece that we added, whether we were

choosing to do a Skype piece, whether we were working with

Sonic Foundry, working with QuickMobile, every single

piece had its place and its purpose and eventually all

tied together to create this really neat package that

people walked away with and felt, yeah, you know what, we

really were able to collaborate, we were able to

try some new technology, we saw some things that could

work for us.

So that was good.

Really, with any event, the whole environment matters.

And so while we recognize that everybody can create some kind

of a soft-seating environment, we were fortunate to work with

Event Lounge who supported that.

But if you look at the stage that's on the one side, we

actually created a pretty simple stage.

And it's two screens.

It's a podium, it's a plant, and it's a backdrop.

And that backdrop is an existing

rental piece in Vancouver.

And so it was very simple to put something up in that

four-hour time frame that we had, but that ended up looking

really fantastic just by thinking about, again, what

was the purpose of every piece that we were adding.

Where the soft-seating really helped, I think, was really in

just setting the tone that this was

a little bit different.

We were gonna create a different experience for you.

And I think it helped support the collaboration that

happened over the two days.

Cameras are critical.

I really can't say enough about that.

It's really important when you are going to have a hybrid

event, you have to have--

I'm going to say two cameras at minimum.

And I'll say that because it gives you just a little more

opportunity to play with the angles and the views.

So you're not having to just always be moving a camera

around and creating that feeling of nausea.

You can have one camera that's focused on the stage.

In this case, the second camera, most of the time, it

could focus on audience questions, or it could focus

on the questions that were coming into the technology

table, where our social media concierges were.

And so that they could jump backstage and provide a better

feed for the Mediasite.

But also that, like I said, you just weren't getting that

big pan thing.

So not a massive investment to have a second camera when you

look at your overall scope.

And I think really worthwhile.

Also lighting.

You can see in that picture, we only had four lights.

It's really similar to your studio today.

You don't need a lot of light to make a difference, but you

do need to have enough light that you can think about,

what's the camera gonna see and how's it gonna see it.

Because if that whole stage was in shadows, it would've

been a very ineffective hybrid event.

You'd be like, oh, they're dark, they're dark,

we can't see them.

So it's just about balancing out what your needs are.

Obviously, there's always going to be some cost impacts,

but it's about thinking about how can you best spend that

money to get the overall experience.

Remembering too with a hybrid event, you're often capturing

that and sharing it for later archiving content.

So you need to be thinking about what's happening right

now, but also what's it gonna look like later.

Sound, critical.

We just found that, so yes.

One little microphone gets tucked under a jacket.

With a hybrid event, if it's not on a microphone, it can't

be captured.

It just sounds like a big whisper in the background.

So whether it's Q&A mikes, podium mikes.

Any time that somebody's asking a question.

Sometimes the fallback is gonna be that if that audience

member doesn't get their wireless, handheld microphone

quickly enough to ask the question in a larger audience,

you can have the presenter ask that question back

and then answer it.

Obviously, a better way of capturing that content in

general is to just make sure that you've got microphones

that are accessible and that are wireless

and can move around.

Or if they're stationary, that people know where to go to to

ask their questions.

So both work, but both are important.

We're almost at the end of 10.

Are we doing good?

It's really important to think about who's doing what job.

And both as you prepare for your events and then as you go

through it all.

So this is Glenn Thayer if you didn't

recognize him upside down.

We did an event that was at a-- this was like Circus Camp,

so that was quite fun.

We also took some hybrid components into that event

where we were able to have some people skype in actually

from Beijing, and talk to us, and share the experience with

us, and had some champagne toasts going on as well, which

was quite fun.

But it's important to think about your host first of all

or multiple hosts.

As we've seen, we had in this case four.

And they all had a very important role to play, so

that was an important thing to consider.

Overall producer, in this case, that was me.

Judy Kucharuk wrote a lovely post about

being a dream wrangler.

This was a dream to make a hybrid event really work, and

happen, and to integrate a lot of experimental things.

And so we took a lot of ideas, and we did put them together.

And it was really great.

It was quite fun.

The tech team.

Feed them, water them.

If they're up at 4:00 in the morning, bring them coffee.

They are the people, always important, but particularly

with a hybrid event where you are relying on that technology

to work, you need to make sure that you have the

right people in place.

So grateful to have had you guys there and to really just

make it all work.

There's a lot of moving pieces.

Remember with a hybrid event that everybody who shows up is

contributing to the experience.

So we had a large committee, a lot of collaborators who

everybody brought something to the table, a number of

presenters face to face, as well as virtual.

And the participants, you can't have a hybrid event that

really integrates the ideas and develops that

collaboration without people who are participating.

And we did a lot of different things.

In this case, they were doing an improv skit.

Getting that HP miked up so that you could hear them and

to make it so that it was interesting for people.

But it's about taking all of those pieces, and embracing

everybody who's there, and listening to the opinions, and

watching the Twitter stream, and watching the Mediasite,

and bringing all of those ideas forward, and finding

later ways to capture that content.

So Liz did a great job on her blog, Liz King Events, of

taking the things that she collected and putting that

content up on her blog for us to share.

There's links to that from the Event Camp Vancouver Wordpress

site as well.

So there's just lots of information.

And that's what a hybrid even should do.

A hybrid event should give you the opportunity to really

create great content and then to deliver it to more people

than you could deliver it to if you were just looking at a

face-to-face experience.

After the event.

So archive, share.

There's so much information out there.

We live in a world that is just--

we are content overloaded, I think, in many ways.

And when you have great content that you can go back

to, I think that that's a really fantastic opportunity.

Timing--

I think probably for most of jobs, but certainly in the

event world, you're often tied to doing what your clients

require and doing it when they require it.

And so we don't always have the opportunity to attend an

event face to face that we'd like to.

So having the opportunity to attend virtually is great.

There's so many reasons for having hybrid events.

And so if you start at the beginning and just really work

through why you're doing it, how you're gonna do it, who's

gonna be part of it, what the benefits will be, and those

benefits will come up later, I think, when you've archived it

and shared it.

So those are the 10 secrets so far.

Awesome.

And for those of you who have taken our poll, I'm gonna fill

you in on the polling results.

So we've had about 20 people take the poll.

Half have done a hybrid event.

20% have not done a hybrid event, so obviously tons of

value for you here today.

And then 6 of them, 6 out of the 20 so far,

say, I hope to soon.

So it's in their future.

So that's one of the questions that first came

in as you were starting.

It seems very piecemeal here.

It seems like bit-sized chunks that you can take off.

But they're also interrelated.

What was the first thing that you did?

Or how did you begin the whole process?

The first thing that we did is to recognize that we wanted to

have a hybrid event.

So we knew from the very beginning that what we wanted

to do was to create a hybrid experience.

In the case of Event Camp, social media technology

innovation, those are the core functionalities that you have

to include.

You don't have to, but those were the ones that we decided

that we would take the lead of and focus on.

So we decided we wanted to have a hybrid event.

When we started to break down the commonalities and the

themes that we wanted to focus on-- so we first decided it

would be a hybrid experience.

Then we started to look at the themes and the things that we

wanted to share.

Then we looked at what are the things that are going to work

best to share between two audiences.

And one of the things that happens with hybrid events and

where I think that one of the concerns people have is that,

well, if I do a hybrid event or I do virtual event, then

people won't attend face to face.

And I think what we've consistently seen-- and you're

going to have more actually probably hard data on this

than I do-- but what we've consistently seen-- and I'm a

perfect example of this.

The reason we had a Event Camp in Vancouver is because I

attended one virtually, then I attended one live, then I

attended another one virtually, and just thought

they were a great experience.

But I wanted to have that face-to-face experience.

And so I think that the idea that you can use it as a bit

of a marketing tool is important.

But really, we wanted to be able to collect more ideas and

to make it a more collaborative effort.

So where we started was knowing that we wanted to be

able to have a hybrid event, open it up to the world, open

it up for a limited time, that we didn't have to focus all of

our energies on it being a shared experience.

That we could really focus on making the shared experiences

that we had a great shared experience is

where we started from.

And then we were fortunate to just start collecting the

right people and really making sure that we

had the right team.

So with the right venue, great internet technology, with you,

with the AV team.

And all the pieces just really came together for how we would

make that work.

It was a week out when we found out we wouldn't have

that space until 4:00 AM.

That's not the phone call you want to make to any supplier.

So thank you for working with us.

This is gonna be fantastic.

And by the way, we will be loading it at 4:00, going live

at 8:00, and then you'll have to work straight

through until 5:00.

I hope that's OK.

But what is also great about this industry is that we know

that sometimes that's just the way the ball rolls.

And everyone just picked it up and went with it.

That's fabulous.

It was fabulous.

So there's a couple questions coming in.

Just as a reminder, there's a speech bubble in your

Mediasite player.

If you have a question for Tahira, we have a little bit

of time left.

So we're going to take a couple.

If you want to include your email address too, if we don't

have time to get to your question, that way we can

connect you with her offline.

So our next question is about participation from Tracy.

She's saying, how many people participated in the live

on-site effort, how many people in the virtual,

collaborative effort.

And then what was your pricing structure like?

We had 90 people that were live, that were face-to-face

participants.

We had 55 that were active, remote participants.

And there was no charge to be a remote participant.

And there was $150 charge to be a live participant.

On-site.

Yes.

And we should say too, if you're not familiar with the

Event Camp series, it's kind of an un-conference, sort of

bar campy, sort of--

Yes.

It's not your traditional type of conference or meeting.

It's very organic.

Yeah, definitely.

And even though it can be very structured, the pricing

doesn't necessarily reflect maybe what you'd see

traditionally out there in the universe.

And did you meet your goals for what you

were hoping to get?

Yes, The objectives that we originally set out were to--

we thought we would have between 65 and 80 people.

So we exceeded that, which was very exciting.

We understand there's a lot of competition out there.

But it was just something that when we started talking about

it with the core committee, we wanted to just achieve a

really great event for people, where people would

walk away and say--

we all go to so many things, where you walk away, and

you're like, well, I learned something, I met someone.

But we're still getting, almost four months later,

people saying, thank you so much for doing that, it was a

great experience.

I'm now collaborating with somebody I

didn't even know existed.

That's what you want is for people to walk away and take

the lessons, and be able to apply them, to develop new

relationships.

And I think that's one of the things that Event Camps have

really succeeded at.

And also something that I think that with the hybrid

opportunity--

because we were able to bring in Deb and Ruud.

And we had a number of people that joined us from Europe and

a number of people that joined us from across the US and from

eastern Canada that wouldn't have been able to join us in a

face to face, but who tends to contribute.

And I think that that's where a hybrid

becomes really critical.

But also where we definitely exceeded the goals

that we had set out.

And just by definition, we had a couple people ask, are we

doing a hybrid event right now.

And I would argue-- and let's see your definition--

that this is more a webcast webinar.

It's one-to-many.

There's two of us here in Madison, Wisconsin, streaming

out to you.

Whereas with a hybrid event, you basically, in real time,

synchronously, have people face-to-face meeting the way

that they normally would meet plus a remote audience.

And then obviously Tahira's given us some great ways to

engage those two.

So another question.

Have you ever worked with

interpreters on hybrid meetings?

Or could you provide any insight in how you would

handle translation?

No, we haven't.

It's partly technology, right?

Because if somebody's speaking in English, it would need to

be translated as it normally would be in an SI booth.

Then you would need to be streaming that out under a

different channel essentially.

Potentially, yeah.

It could be a separate stream.

Or sometimes people will-- and this is true for live closed

captioning too--

they'll have translation happening

within the video window.

So underneath us right now, it's another service provider

that's gonna come in and do that captioning for you or

that translation for you.

There's actually an event that we did with Rush University

where they were using World Health Organization

translators.

And same thing, they were streaming the same video

stream, but the audio was taken over.

So definitely can be done.

And it's one of those things where it's important to bring

the right people together early and then have lots and

lots of conversation.

So definitely.

So we're catching up.

Lots of questions coming in for you.

I know we're a little bit over on time, but we'll take a

couple more.

This is from Tom.

What do you think is the best type of event that makes for a

good hybrid event?

Are there certain types of events that you wouldn't

recommend doing as a hybrid event?

For me, there isn't an event that has content as its

primary reason for being.

If your primary reason for having an event is content

delivery, knowledge sharing, and relationship building, I

would do a hybrid event.

A hybrid event doesn't make a lot of sense if you're doing

an incentive trip.

But it makes a lot of sense if you're doing anything that is

knowledge based.

Because it gives you an opportunity to share

information across a wider audience.

That's an awesome answer.

Another question is how do you see this working for larger

groups, like 200 and 300 live, in person and 200, 300 online.

Would it scale?

I think that's more common actually.

The case study we looked at today was a very small model

of a hybrid.

I think that the more successful hybrids are

actually the larger events.

And I'll use industry examples of MPI and PCMA, which I

haven't attended live, but I have attended remotely.

And they've been fantastic.

They've got 2,000 people in the room, so highly scalable.

And a virtual audience of anywhere from 200, 300, 400,

500, watching virtually.

And I'll use the example of PCMA.

Because what happened from that was that the people who--

there was a smaller group of us, maybe 20 or 30, that Lynn

Randall was leading the stream on, so guiding us,

facilitating the discussion from the online group.

And it was so successful, we're gonna have a book club.

Oh, that's very funny.

Right?

So there's a lot of opportunity to scale

it up to any size.

And I think you see that internally within

corporations, a lot of corporations where they are

having 400 or 500 people.

Stefanie Pfeilsticker and Sam Smith did a great case study

of Thrivent and what they did.

There's some great case studies.

Lots of opportunity to scale it up.

Yeah, and if you're looking for case studies, I was gonna

say, ping us.

And just write back in and include your email address.

And we're happy to share more of those with you too.

How do you handle various time zones when you're doing a

hybrid event?

You do it in your own time zone, and you let people know

when it's gonna be.

And then the archiving allows people to go back.

So if the time zone really doesn't work--

Event Camp Europe was a great example.

Event Camp Europe started at 9:00 AM, which was 1:00 AM for

Mike McAllen who was up on a Google Hangout with Greg Ruby

at 4:00 AM.

And they were drinking coffee and watching.

I got up a little bit later for Event Camp Europe.

But you can't change the time zone where you are.

But you can give tools, such as letting people get up at

ungodly hours.

Or you can do later cataloging to have that.

And we've seen people too where they do it live and

engage whoever's in that time zone.

Then make it available on demand.

Encourage people to watch it.

And then will do a collaborative chat with the

people then at a later date.

Still with a live stream, where you've got a host like

us sitting there talking too.

So definitely manageable, but it is a challenge.

Well, Event Camp Down Under happens this weekend.

So it's on Sunday and Monday, the 26th and the 27th.

But it's in Australia, New Zealand.

It's in a totally different time zone than here.

So I'll absolutely join that.

But our 9:00 AM one day is their 2:00 PM.

It's very--

Distributed.

It's very distributed time zone.

But you know when it's gonna happen.

So you can make it work.

So this is a question that's maybe a little bit different

for your event, but you do other events too.

Because Event Camp was definitely all contributions.

It was a partnership type of thing.

But Lynn is asking, we've always assumed the more

technology you bring to the table, the more expense.

Do hybrid events really have to be more expensive?

No, they don't.

Because I think that as soon as you've decided that you're

going to have an event that has content, you should have

some kind of technology.

Because you're gonna want to share some visuals.

You're going to want to have some lighting.

You're gonna want to make your stage look good.

You're gonna have some of those basic elements anyhow,

again, scaled up or down depending on

what your event is.

But I think that really the only layer that you're adding

is a possibly one or two camera layer and a Sonic

Foundry layer.

And quite honestly, they're really reasonable.

So for what you get back, for me, it's a little bit of a

no-brainer if it's a knowledge-based--

we're now in this age where what you have as an

association is content, knowledge, membership,

networking.

Every association has this as their cores.

And being able to take your content, capture it, archive

it, save it, now you're a bit of a knowledge leader.

And so I think that adding in that hybrid component for the

small expense, really, that it's gonna add to the cost of

an overall program is gonna put you just a little bit

higher in that subject matter expert, knowledge sharing

ranking from that perspective.

So yes, there's an expense.

But I don't think that it's an outrageous expense.

That's a great question.

And there's still more coming in.

Unfortunately, we're out of time.

So keep them coming.

And you can go ahead, even in on demand, ask the questions.

And we'll connect you with Tahira.

If you've asked a question earlier and didn't include

your email, just send it to us again with your email.

We'll make sure that you get connected afterwards.

And again, this will be available on demand.

Just click the same link that brought you here today.

And feel free to share it with any of your colleagues.

I want to thank Tahira so much for providing her knowledge

and expertise.

And I want to thank all of you for joining us.

Have a great day.

Thank you.