These Three Misconceptions Will Ruin Your Virtual Event Plans
When hosts of in-person events had to switch to virtual experiences over the past year, most were not up-to-speed on what that involved. They may have had previous experience with Zoom or other forms of video conferencing, but the familiar solution isn’t always the right one. Even in a simplified video conferencing setup, making a program look like it’s more than your average “Monday-morning-all-hands-on-deck” meeting (with clunky screen shares, dropped audio, poor lighting, and that inevitable moment with someone forgetting they’re muted while the rest of the staff yells, “you’re on mute!”) actually takes a lot of effort. In this video, KE Partner Paige Buck breaks down three common virtual event misconceptions and shares a few ideas that will help lead you to virtual event success.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Paige Buck, Kennedy Events Partner and Chief Strategy Officer: I’m going to share with you a little bit about the three big misconceptions that we find when planning a virtual event.
The first is that a platform is plug and play and that your people will stay through the entire experience. First off, platforms can come off as plug and play, but there's actually a lot that goes into first selecting one that meets your goals and your needs, and also meets your budget. But also, even once you've selected one, there's a lot you can do to kit it out and customize it, to make the experience meaningful for your attendees, to make the brand look and feel resonate with your audience and sell your product or your company, and to make the experience robust, but also meet the goals of your event. And with that, you have to put into practice some things that will actually get your people to stay through the session.
We know that everybody's attention spans are limited right now and that we're coming to them only through this virtual box, so you have to break things down in ways that will make it compelling and interesting and change things up a lot for people. We call that snackable content where your sessions are much shorter, and you enliven things with question and answer periods or breakouts where people can connect with one another or some social experiences that feel different in this moment.
The second big misconception is that the only big cost is the platform. And while it's true that some of these platforms can be really expensive. There's a lot more that goes into a successful virtual event than simply the platform itself. Some of the other big costs that come into play are the production team that supports putting your content up during sessions. They support making your speakers prepared before the event, making sure their technical setup is going to support them and that their Internet's not going to go down in the middle of their session or that they're lit properly. They also ensure that speakers not only know how to talk to the camera but that they're prepared before they get thrust onto that virtual stage. Then to switch between all of those components. There’s a lot that goes into that behind the scenes.
Another big cost is when you try to do something social that can include shipping things to your attendees, like cocktails that they're going to make together during the event. That sounds fantastic. It does cost something.