The Future of Events

This article was first published on LinkedIn on May 26, 2020.

Stampede: shutdown. Weddings: postponed. Conferences: banned.

There’s no going back. Events suddenly became one of the biggest casualties of the pandemic. The toll also has no foreseeable end in sight. It is plausible that mass gatherings will be restricted well into next year. These strange times have forced us all to rethink what events look like. The natural response so far has been to cancel, postpone or downgrade to some version of a Zoom webinar. We’ve all been inundated with free Zoom webinars every week. With an isolated and captive audience, savvy marketers are capitalizing on the moment to promote their brands. With so many free choices, “Zoom Burnout” has become a new condition for many of us.

How can events survive this rapidly degrading situation and not become a permanent pandemic victim? The answer is still the obvious: Virtual Events. According to Sagehub.com, a hugely successful event planning team, Virtual Events achieve the same or better results than live ones, for much less cost! Consider that you have no massive facility rental, no insurance, no liability, no liquor license and all the associated location headaches. You can imagine how the savings add up quickly. Not only are there more attendees, the revenue is also greater.

However, early adopters have reduced events to free, non-interactive webinars. These static broadcasts made little connection with attendees and essentially eliminated any feeling of community. But are these webinars the future of our new normal? I envision the future with much greater possibilities. 

We need to adapt. Let’s start by going back to the basics and ask ourselves, why do people come to events? After being involved in the planning of hundreds of events, three key reasons stand out in my mind: Content, Connection, and Community.

Content

It is undoubtedly your presenters, speakers, hosts and their topics that drive attendance to your events. But how can their value be maintained in a virtual gathering? The answer is simpler than you might expect. They need to deliver the same quality content and they need to deliver it in the same way, just as if they were live at the event. In other words, they should not be wearing a T-shirt (unless they are a hipster) in a horribly lit and messy home, with dogs barking and children interrupting. They should not be working out their tech issues with microphones and their low quality webcams while live. And they certainly should not be sitting in a chair with the webcam pointed up their nose and at the ceiling. And the worst of the bunch, they should not use the virtual background setting where their head fades in and out of existence. 

Your goal here is simple: make it professional, polished and entertaining.

Find a location with a real stage and have your presenter deliver their presentation live, with the stage lights, the Powerpoint, and your introduction. In short, you need to do everything you were going to do in your live event, without the food, beverage and crowd issues. Film all of this with real video cameras with mics, multiple camera angles, and clean audio. Include a large screen facing your presenter so he/she can actually see the faces of your attendees. This allows for real, live interaction. 

Connection

People love the connection at events, both with presenters and other participants. This is the crucial step that everybody skips when going online. It is the element that lifts your virtual events above a one-way live stream. Here is the way to achieve connection:

A.     Do a live Check-In. Have one of your team members do a live Zoom call with every registrant. Welcome them and do a tech check ensuring they know how to use the platform. This immediately builds a connection between your team and your audience. Have a schedule for large events to space out these calls so that you can manage the numbers.

B.     Do a Door Opening. Open the event online 30 minutes ahead. Have your bubbly host warm up the crowd and get them excited. Play great music. You can even go all out and use a comedian. 

C.     Use a Chat Moderator. You need to manage the Chat and Q&A panels, feeding the relevant responses to the presenter. The presenter should make every effort to give responses to the audience's posts to maintain the interactive experience. The moderator should respond to every submission that the presenter can not. Most of us expect no response when we add chat comments in webinars. Imagine if the host responded to every person individually!

D.    Use the Zoom Breakout Room feature. This one is the clincher. This feature allows participants to be in a small group to see and talk to one another, live. Use Breakout Rooms when you have multiple seminars happening concurrently. You can use Breakout Rooms before, mid, or after the presentation. You may give topics of discussion or just allow people to network. Hosts can move from one room to another to facilitate discussion in case there are too many socially awkward individuals in one room! If possible, add a live facilitator to each room to keep the conversations moving. Plan out the groups and set up these rooms ahead of time.

E.  Have a real Q&A where you appear on stage interview-style and have a conversation with the presenter, asking the live questions from your audience through your moderator.

Community

We all want to be a part of a like-minded community that stands for something bigger. Events achieve that and virtual events are no different. 

A. The best events have swag. Get these delivered ahead of time. Include useful or meaningful items such as clothing, caps, flasks, and journals. Skip the junk, the brochures and flyers. Go for quality, not quantity. 

B. Make it fun. Have a selfie and social media contest. Have door prizes. Have a live auction with fun items as an opener, with proceeds going to charity. Capture this well with great video footage using a mobile camera. Reward people for posting on social.  For example, give one draw entry for every post. 

C. Keep the meal. If your event had a meal, axing that is a huge hit to the value of the event. Instead, keep the meal by having registrants pick it up at a centrally located caterer. You can even arrange a beverage of their choice to be included. Run the dinner within breakout rooms. Get creative footage of your whole team dining and commenting. This will take some serious coordination. Imagine people at your event all dining at the same time from their homes and uploading selfies!

The Tech

To cap off all this great virtual goodness, you need to get your tech right. Your goal here is a production that is a memorable experience delivered impeccably. That means there is no room for an amateur homemade look. It should look like an event you see on TV, because you are essentially competing with Netflix. It should look like something akin to the Oscars. You should have lots of different shots and angles, keeping things exciting and moving. Your options to do this are straightforward. Hire a professional and creative video production crew, or master these processes with available resources online. Partnering with a video team makes the most sense. You do what you’re good at and let your event vendors do the rest. And the savings from going virtual should cover the expense by simply reallocating budgets.

Here’s what you’ll need from a virtual event video crew:

A.     Videographers: 2 or more videographers with pro cameras and mics and the ability to capture awesome motion footage.

B.     Gear: Livestream capture equipment and computers.

C.     Switcher: 1 or more technicians with video switching hardware/software to manage the video feeds.

D.    AV Tech: 1 or more audio technicians to manage the audio feeds.

E.     Zoom Tech: A Zoom technician to manage the presentation, transitions, chat box and Q&A.

F.     Director: A dedicated person to direct the production (It can be you.)

G.     Mobile internet abilities from this team if location has inadequate internet service.

Virtual events have the potential to be easier and wildly successful compared to its live event sibling. With a global audience your reach is limitless.  Most people are willing to travel to a good conference. Without the travel and associated expenses and time, the attraction to a virtual event is now greater than ever.  Consider SocialWest, Canada’s largest digital marketing conference. They made the decision to postpone their live event until next year. In the meantime, they have pivoted their resources to SocialAtHome, a virtual marketing conference.  By all measures from the response, it is expected to be massively successful. 

Even with lockdowns gradually lifting, public opinions regarding crowd gatherings have been forever altered. We must innovate. Pulling all this together is going to stretch your creativity and perseverance as a professional. This is your opportunity to rebirth your event into something amazing that will reward both you and your clients. Most importantly you will not only survive but thrive. Get moving!

Gil Ngai

When not on a bicycle, Gil Ngai is a digital storyteller helping businesses tell good stories with films and media. He also mentors students as an instructor of media production at Mt. Royal University. He is the president of the non-profit Calgary Professional Videographer’s Association. He is husband and father, tech geek, artist, fitness fanatic and spiritual encourager. Connect with him on LI or IG (@day1media) or at www.dayonemedia.ca.