Hybrid events guide: Everything you need to know

There’s no question that more conferences, meetings, and seminars are taking place virtually these days. The virtual events market is expected to reach $366 billion globally by 2027 (up from $114 billion in 2021).

But not everyone prefers a virtual experience over an onsite one. While 33% of survey respondents said they would rather attend a hybrid event virtually, 57% of respondents said they would rather attend in person.

To maximize your event ROI, you have to provide both options—in other words, go hybrid.

If you haven’t hosted a hybrid event before, don’t panic. We’re here to help you put on a successful event with video that creates a seamless experience for both in-person and virtual attendees. 

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• What hybrid events are
• Different types of hybrid events
• The benefits of hybrid events
• Tips for a successful hybrid event
• Answers to hybrid event FAQs

What are hybrid events?

A hybrid event is one event with two different, but connected experiences. 

This can look like a trade show, conference, meeting, or seminar that combines a live, in-person aspect with a virtual event experience. The great thing about hybrid events is that there’s great freedom to build the digital component.

The digital component can range from social media inclusion to live streaming the entire event. The key to success is getting creative and go with what works for your audience.

Types of hybrid events

The flexibility of hybrid events makes them ideal for both internal and external events. The following use cases are just a few examples of the types of events you can host in a hybrid format.

Internal events

Internal events help deepen employee engagement, align teams, and contribute to a brand’s foundational success. But getting every employee together for a meeting is nearly impossible.

That’s where a hybrid approach comes in. Platforms for virtual events, like Vimeo Venues, are designed to increase employee engagement and knowledge retention. Venues provides exciting interactive engagement tools, advanced breakout rooms, and quality production features.

Empower employees with two options to attend a meeting: Set the stage for those who want to attend an in-person internal event and equip the remaining distributed employees with secure video, engagement tools, and a video library to access all content.

Here are some use cases for internal events that can go hybrid:

• Town halls
• SKOs ( Sales Kick-offs)
• Recurring team sessions
• Team building workshops
• In-person and remote onboarding

External events

External events cater to your clients, prospects, and general audience. The intention here is often to generate new business and nurture customers. Pivoting your in-person-only event to a type of virtual event or hybrid event will help extend your reach.

Give attendees the option to attend in-person or virtually on your registration page and provide a list of what they’ll need for the best possible experience. For example, virtual attendees will need reliable Wi-Fi, a laptop or other device for streaming, and someplace to keep notes of what they learn.

For in-person attendees, you could share a list of weather-appropriate clothing items (especially if your event will take place in a very hot or cold climate).

Here are some external events to consider for a hybrid setting:

• Conferences
• Seminars
• Webinars
• Trade shows
• Product launches
• Client appreciation events

The benefits of hybrid events

So why should you invest in a hybrid event? While your audience might not always join an event in-person, having ad hoc access to your event content is still valuable. Going hybrid helps you reach a wider audience by making an event available in-person and online.

Here are five key benefits to consider when hosting your first hybrid event: 

1. Extend your reach

You’re not limited to the local audience with hybrid experiences. You can cater to and connect with a global audience.

Live streaming an event widens your reach—connecting you with your audience (no matter where they’re located), building up your brand, helping promote products, and (with the right solution) quickly and easily bringing an event to life online.

Hybrid also expands the horizon for potential event speakers. Want talent from another continent? No problem. You can have speakers contribute virtually.

2. Build more sponsorship offerings

Event sponsors can now invest in two experiences with a hybrid model. What was once a world of sponsor booths and logo signage placement can migrate to digital real estate. 

A hybrid event sponsor can explore new options like sponsoring virtual event sessions and workshops, leading virtual networking experiences, and more. Hybrid events give sponsors more reasons to invest in your event while increasing revenue for your business.

3. Create new opportunities for audience engagement

Hybrid events create opportunities for audience members to mingle in multiple ways. Digital audiences can engage with each other and with in-person attendees. Similarly, in-person attendees can connect with each other and with digital audiences through live chat and polls supported by your platform. Your virtual platform is a medium that connects both audiences to a digital space where most of this interaction can live.

4. Keep the conversation going

A common challenge of an event of any type is sustaining the conversation once the event is over. Hybrid events can seamlessly transition to on-demand content, creating an audience that your organization can nurture over time. For example, with curated email newsletters that drive readers to your video library.

Three-quarters of event marketers said virtual participants find on-demand sessions more valuable than live ones. You can even explore how to monetize your event content with VOD streaming.

Continued engagement will also help generate more business for your sales pipeline.

5. Lowered environmental and financial risks

Globally, the events industry is responsible for more than 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Hybrid events could potentially reduce that carbon footprint by two-thirds.

In addition to helping the environment, hybrid events can reduce financial risks — for example, the liability of booking a 200+ block of hotel suites. Catering and disposable resources also decrease.

If you know where to look, you’ll find cost-saving measures throughout the event planning process. Check out our free virtual event budget template and go deep on the biggest costs and opportunities for savings as you plan your next event.

12 tips for creating a hybrid event

If you’ve never hosted a hybrid event, there’s no better time to get started! With the right strategy and video tools, any organization or business can produce a successful hybrid experience. Just remember: Like any other event, setting goals is essential for kicking off the creative process.

Follow these tips for building a successful hybrid event experience:

1. Set a realistic strategy

There are a few new things to consider when bringing a hybrid event idea to life. You’ll want to create an event strategy to identify which components should be virtual and which should be in-person, and who will be involved.

Considerations for mapping out an event strategy include:

• Virtual venue: What is the limit to the amount of content your virtual or live streaming platform can hold? This includes bandwidth and streaming capabilities.
• Physical venue: Is your venue available and willing to host in-person events? If so, what is the venue capacity? Also note the safety measures and requirements, if any. 
• Sponsor & partners:  Is there a sponsorship opportunity for your hybrid event? Contact your sponsors to get a sense of how willing and ready they are to participate in a hybrid event.  
• Assign internal teams: Determine who from the team will head the physical event experience and the virtual component of the hybrid event. 
• Backup plan: No one likes to think about the worse case scenario. But in the event of lockdown measures, event planners should prepare to go 100% virtual.

2. Plan your event with two kinds of attendees in mind

The unique part about hybrid events is that you are uniting two different audiences. On one hand, there is the in-person audience present at a physical event. They’re attending for that experiential event factor. Meanwhile, your second audience consists of virtual attendees tuning into streaming content and engaging with speakers and attendees.

Ask yourself, how will audiences engage with the content? How can I give my in-person audience a memorable experience while staying connected to my virtual audience at the same time? You may find yourself with two different internal teams behind the scenes. This is to ensure both audience journeys stay interconnected.

3. Captivate your audience with content

The last thing your audience wants to see is a stream of speakers presenting from a podium. You’ll want to invest in professional video production to provide a cinematic experience for your attendees.

Presentations and graphics should be pristine to draw viewers in. Whether your speakers are deep in conversation on stage or taking live Q&A during a webinar presentation, you’ll want to make sure your production tools help liven the content. Professional quality video streaming will also help keep your virtual audience tuned on screen.

And don’t forget your guest speakers! Remember to prep and rehearse with speakers so they’re fully prepared to deliver the best possible content. Provide in-person and virtual speakers with a greenroom area to rehearse and meet the production team.

4. Increase engagement with multiple environments

When thinking about set and design, consider expanding beyond a general event session area. New environments for different types of event sessions or just casual collisions can compliment the in-person experience. It also guarantees remote audiences can experience different event locations. A change in set design can serve a similar purpose.

And for speakers who contribute virtually, ensure their content compliments the program. Send speaker packs in advance detailing guidelines that their virtual session must follow. It always helps to send speaker kits to assist with lighting and/or branded backdrops for the best visual presentation.

5. Create exclusive experiences for attendees

You want to provide your audience with experiences that make them feel special regardless of where they tune in. Here are two ideas to create a sense of exclusivity for both your in-person and virtual audiences:

1. Market the value of each experience: Consider ways you can make each experience different. For example, for in-person ticket holders, offer a VIP experience for the first 50-100 attendees. Capacity limits can also drive up demand. For the virtual registrants or ticket holders, provide sneak-peek access, behind the scenes clips, or early access to content presentations. 
2. Report live from the event: Think of this as your internal news or media team. Report live from the in-person event and broadcast to your virtual audience. Not only are you engaging you in-person attendees, but you’re also extending that engagement to the remote audience. Report between sessions and interview both attendees and speakers. Just keep in mind, reporting from the event would be distinct from hosting the event.

6. Have fun with different event formats

For remote attendees, consider sending materials or relevant swag (as they relate to the content) ahead of the event. This can encourage digital audiences to test out a product from home and share their experiences during a session. Use live chat, polls, virtual breakout rooms and more to drive engagement and casual collisions between digital attendees. 

For in-person attendees, change up the setting with both indoor and outdoor environments. Make sessions more interactive with virtual reality elements. Above all, give your attendees space. With so much going on in a hybrid setting, you’ll want to give your in-person audience time to digest both the event itself and valuable content.

7. Enlist the help of other teams (not just marketing)

Event planning is hard work, and the technical aspects of a hybrid event can be overwhelming. First, you want to make sure you have the right hybrid events platform to connect both audiences. Then, you’ll want to loop in the appropriate teams ready to monitor the following:

• IT troubleshooting team: Have platform experts on deck for any trouble shooting needs. Their role solely pertains to technical aspects of your live streaming or virtual platform. 
• Community engagement team: Assign team members as moderators or hosts in all virtual breakouts, live chats, and apps. 
• Social media team: Designate a team to manage online communities and share content across your social platforms.

8. Budget for a professional, live streaming experience

A professional broadcast experience is critical to hybrid event success. About 57% of viewers will abandon a stream after an interruption of less than one second. And quality and technical problems can hurt your credibility.

While your live streaming platform can help deliver high quality video, consider hiring a production team to execute the in-person and virtual experience. A good production team will know how to manage both. This means they can execute the in-person aspects like lighting, camera, audio, presentation/video transitions etc.) and manage the stream for the digital viewing audience. 

Because budgets tend to increase here, note this cost early. Hiring a professional production team is well worth the investment. A professional producer, sound operator, and engineer can help bring a successful hybrid vision to life.

9. Host a great onsite experience

While much of the focus seems to be on the remote audience, your physical audience needs a great experience, too. This all revolves around the onsite experience.  With fewer attendees in-person, you can invest in all things experiential like event check-in, networking tools, and food!

10. Solicit feedback post-event

Every hybrid event you host should serve as a learning experience to improve the next one. This means feedback is critical.

Email your virtual and in-person attendees within a week of your event. In addition to thanking them and linking to event resources (like recorded sessions), use polls and surveys to get feedback about their experience. The responses will help you refine your hybrid event management strategy for the future.

11. Measure more than just registration and attendance

Event analytics can include event registrants, in-person and virtual attendees, audience engagement scores, content views, watch time, speaker insights, and more. In the case that you are using an event app or a communication platform like Slack or Discord, monitor peak engagement times. Note trending topics or content views to get better intel into what drives attendees.

And don’t stop capturing analytics at the end of the event. While 48% of marketers capture pre-event ad clicks, only 35% measure post-event asset engagement.

12. Create a contingency plan

Prepare for the unexpected. No one likes to think about the worst-case scenario, but it’s a good idea to have a contingency plan to go 100% virtual if necessary.

A few things to keep in mind while planning your hybrid event:

• Venue negotiation:  Before you’re ready to sign on the dotted line for your in-person venue and vendors, ensure there’s an added clause that saves you from a loss in the event of an emergency. 
• Production ROS: Provide your production team with two run of shows: one for a hybrid event and one for a virtual event. Should there be a pivot last minute, you’ll be equipped with plan B. 
• Speaker guidelines: Brief all you in-person speakers for a virtual scenario. Include details in their speaker pack to reference if there are last-minute changes.
• Pivot in-person tickets: Have a plan set to convert in-person tickets to virtual.

Hybrid events FAQ

Video, live streaming, and other new event technology have enabled more flexible ways of connecting people across the globe. As a result, traditional events have evolved in ways we never imagined — and we’re all still learning.

Here are a few frequently asked questions about hybrid events that may help you get started. 

Stay on top of the ever-changing event industry

Hybrid events give us the opportunity to scale, reach, and engage larger audiences than ever before. 

As you navigate the hybrid model, ask yourself, “How can we do things better?” It may feel like you’re always trying to optimize logistics, marketing strategies, and execution of future events. But event professionals are in an industry that is constantly changing. And with powerful video tools at the fingertips, you can ace hybrid events.

Produce your next hybrid event