When it comes to planning a Virtual or Live Event (or a combination of the two – (notice I do not say hybrid) you will need to choose an event platform. I believe whenever I need to choose the event platform, it is best to outline everything, know the purpose and goal, so that I can make the right decision. Is this how you make decisions? To ensure your event is successful, it is imperative that you outline your Event Strategy (we will talk about that more in another blog).
What is an Event Platform?
Remember the days when we used to only hold in-person events? At the time of this post, some counties open up in-person events, we get to see our colleagues and friends at in-person events, then they shut down again. What’s a person to do?
We are seeing that some of our clients are choosing to stay virtual since they have a broader reach of attendees. For in-person events your venue is your platform. Imagine your hospitality check-in desk, various breakout rooms and the general session. For the in-person events the technology kept improving so we introduced event cell phone apps that people could use to network and plan. We still love the networking and interaction with human beings, but these phone and computer apps allowed us to easily and efficiently connect with people at the event. You could login to view your schedule, read the bio and outlines of each speaker session, find sponsors you wanted to visit during the breaks or lunches (and sometimes miss a session to talk to them) as well as download information that was helpful and valuable. This created an even better experience when attending conferences and events and when you returned home or to the office you had a good idea of the follow up needed in the next few weeks.
Virtual Live Events and Dashboards
Guess what friend? The same thing applies to virtual events; your platform or dashboard is now your exclusive venue. Some people even view this as the hospitality desk, and it can direct an attendee to the right place. It includes a variety of tools to plan, promote, and execute your event.
Many platform products are designed to help businesses deliver the same feel and value of in-person events through digital experiences. Have you ever been in a zoom meeting, and you arrived early (which is on time), and many others did not? The speaker begins their presentation and is referencing a downloadable pdf that was posted in the chat. Next, someone either interrupts or posts in the chat that they do not have the document or link. It holds up the presentation and the presenter ends up posting it again. I do not know about you, but this drives me crazy.
There are ways to make virtual meetings and conferences more efficient and streamlined by choosing the right platform or dashboard. The goal is to increase engagements and interaction and make it easy for the attendee to find everything they need during the event. You can even tie this to gamification or winning prizes. Your chat function then can become more of a networking tool and an area to provide pertinent information about the attendees and everything else is accessible via the dashboard.
A Sample of Event Platforms
There are several event platforms to choose from, a few are listed below. In a future blog, I will break down some of these and tell you more about the benefits.
Here is a list of a few to check out!
- Obvio – this is a new one and I am loving everything about it. We offer this to all our clients and getting rave reviews *GoTo Webinar – more for conferences and conventions where you do not want much networking
- Whova
- Cvent – used by a lot of event planners and strategists for conferences
- Zoom – please note zoom is not a dashboard, but a way to have a meeting. I recommend finding the best platform that allows you to integrate zoom
- Bizzabo
- Eventzilla
We will be chatting more about many of the other platforms, so stay tuned.