Hybrid events as a trend

Hybrid event is one of the most popular trends in event industry for recent years. What is hybrid event? A hybrid event is a conference, meeting, trade show, seminar or workshop, which combines both live event and virtual event via Internet. It provides the methods for attendees, who are not able to be physically present, to participate in the event. The huge convenience and benefits help hybrid event gain popularity in the industry.

Source: http://www.internationalmeetingsreview.com

PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) held this year’s Convening Leaders conference, an international conference focusing on future trends in meeting design, strategy and event tech, during January 11th to 14th, 2015 in Chicago. Hybrid sessions are scheduled for 3 days, including general sessions with Andrew Zolli, Diana Nyad, and Dan Pallotta; Thought Leadership sessions with Scott Stratten, Helen Marriage, Simone Ahuja and Erin Meyer; and some main speeches such as "Boom! 5 Education Disruptors and their Implications for Conference Learning Design". Hybrid attendees can watch the lectures and download the materials, as well as participating in the sessions by live chatting and live poll. And hybrid attendees can also build networking through "virtual happy hour" at the end of each day.

The technology of hybrid meeting keeps contributing to the success of Convening Leaders conference. "Every year, we have seen an increase in both our remote and face-to-face audiences since first streaming in 2010," said Jennifer Kingen Kush, director of experience marketing for PCMA. Last year, she added, the conference saw nearly 1,000 remote attendees. This year's event has already seen hybrid registration from 17 countries.

Hybrid meeting is an effective way for event organizers to recruit and organize remote attendees. Due to time schedule or limited budget, some attendees are not able to attend meetings which take place in long distance. And in some occasions, event organizers cannot provide venue with enough capacity. Hybrid meetings provide the solution for these problems. Through technology, remote attendees can get access to live audio/video of the conference, presentations, slides and other materials.

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Hybrid meetings provide and promote the communication between attendees. Remote attendees can ask questions to the live speakers through online forum. And they can interactive with any attendees and exchange opinions through online chat rooms, live blogs, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. It is an online community for both live and virtual attendees to create and share values during the event. And long-lasting communication can still be held after the event.

As a cost-effective event solution for both event organizers and attendees, hybrid event is adopted more and more frequently throughout the whole world. The interactive experience provided by this type of event meets the trend of meeting industry development. With the development of tailored event apps, the demands of remote attendees can be satisfied more easily. What’s more, hybrid event eliminates large quantity of long distance travels. By reducing carbon footprint, it favors the sustainability of the environment. And also it is an ideal back-up plan for large-scale events and conferences. With all the benefits and added values, it can be predicted that we will welcome a high-speed development of hybrid events in the coming years.

In the meantime, what leaves event organizers to think more about is how to create authenticity for hybrid event attendees, comparing to face-to-face meetings.

Authors:

Hongyin ZHANG & Bao WANG

Source:

http://www.internationalmeetingsreview.com/meetings-events/pcma-promotes-hybrid-sessions-convening-leaders-100813