Hybrid event

On top of a normal event you add direction, at least two cameras, audio from the desk, a transmission link and someone watching the chat. That is typically three to five extra people and a day of setup in the venue. The connection test happens the day before, not an hour before doors, because hotel wifi is the most common reason a stream dies. The online portion usually costs a third to a half of the event itself.

Why companies do it: reach. A conference for two hundred people in the room has another five hundred online who would never drive across the country. It also produces a recording you can use all year. A company running its annual partner meeting had higher attendance online than in the room, and the cost per viewer dropped to a fraction.

What to settle in advance: who hosts for the online audience, because for people at a screen the breaks are dead air. Then how chat questions are collected and who puts them to the room. And speaker consent to streaming and recording, ideally in writing when they confirm. You supply the running order with exact times, we build the direction around it.

Where it goes wrong: treating the online audience as a bonus. A camera on a tripod in the back row, room sound and nobody in the chat means half the viewers leave within fifteen minutes. The second mistake is going hybrid when the point of the event is people meeting. Networking cannot be streamed, and trying only adds cost to something that was about shaking hands.

With a hybrid event we settle one thing first: whether the primary audience is in the room or online. Everything else follows from that, because you cannot serve both equally. Try it today: watch the first five minutes of your last event recording and ask whether you would keep watching if you had not been there.