Online trade shows caught the fancy of the world during the desperate days of COVID-19. With people confined indoors for most part of the day through the year from 2020 to 2022, online trade shows became hugely popular. It significantly benefitted businesses desperate to reach out to a wider audience and attract potential customers.
The post-COVID 19 era saw online trade shows evolving into a combination of onsite and online trade show called Hybrid trade Show. This allowed attendees to attend the event either in-person or virtually. It significantly benefitted attendees scattered across the globe and hampered by having to make it to the event on time. Long travel distances and transportation difficulties all contributed to the growing popularity of hybrid events.
Hosting a hybrid event is no easy task. It requires methodical planning and meticulous execution. You need to get live and virtual components to coordinate seamlessly to ensure both live and online audiences get their proper due.
GUIDE TO HOSTING HYBRID TRADE SHOWS
Here is the complete guide that tells you on how to host hybrid trade shows.
1. HAVE A PROPER PLAN
Like every other event, it’s vital to have a proper plan with vision for hybrid trade shows.Â
There are some trade shows that are partly hybrid and partly live. Similarly, there are others that are hybrid to a certain extent only with a few live event activities and content available online. Hence, it’s vital to know how hybrid the show will be.Â
There are also shows that are totally physical, meaning the event is live. They usually come with option for exhibiting companies to present virtual booths in addition to physical ones. Apart from the usual content available at live venue, other aspects like keynote address or educational seminars, and other such likes are generally made available online.
To stay well prepared for such scenarios, having a proper plan helps.Â
When it comes to that few aspects need to be taken into consideration. Like,Â
- Significance and purpose of the trade show.
- Nature of target-audience and their demographic details. Like their location, description, job profile and industry, interests, etc.
- Attendees’ participation. How many will do so live and how many online.Â
- Nature and amount of content available live, online, or both.
- Nature of data to be collected and how they are to be collected.
- KPIs, what are they for the event and what metrics will be used to track them for evaluating the event and assess ROI.
2. MAINTAIN DEFINED OBJECTIVES
Once you understand the nature of the hybrid event, next up you should have clearly defined objectives. By objectives, it is meant what you intend to achieve from the event. That is, are you looking to enhance your brand’s visibility, or cultivate qualified leads, or foster business partnerships, or just looking to present your brand and offerings.
Having proper objectives will help you to better plan for the event and what you need to do to achieve the objectives. You will have a clear direction to follow with a proper roadmap on how they need to be implemented.Â
3. PICK APPROPRIATE VENUE
For the smooth conduct of a hybrid event, it’s important to select a venue that is accessible to onsite attendees as well as online attendees.Â
Towards this end, make sure
- Location provides sufficient space for in-person booths, presentations, and networking spaces.Â
- Internet connectivity with technical support to ensure hassle-free virtual interactions and attending to technical issues.Â
The convention centre venue should ideally have multiple halls and dedicated streaming area to host exhibitors physically and broadcasting virtual presentations. The whole approach should drive seamless and hassle-free interaction between onsite audience and virtual audience.Â
4. PROMOTE THE HYBRID TRADE SHOW
Your hybrid trade show would be a non-starter without adequate promotion. By promotion, it is meant promoting the hybrid nature of the trade show and highlighting its activities and other aspects. There are various ways in which it can be done. Like,
- Trade show event website supplemented with registration and ticketing features.Â
- Social media with the event hashtag and periodic updates regarding the event.
- Email Campaign aimed at converting existing subscribers to event attendees.
- Extra promotion through sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors themselves.
5. INVESTMENT IN A STRONG VIRTUAL PLATFORM
Hybrid event participation means you will have to contend with an online audience. Partnering with a reliable virtual event platform provider with the resources to host the trade show’s digital aspects is recommended herein.
Ideally, such a platform shouldÂ
- Offer essential interactive features needed for hosting hybrid trade shows. Features like Live Chat, Video Conferencing, Virtual Booth, and Networking Lounges, all required for networking with and engaging virtual attendees.
- Portray your brand through the 3D virtual venue, lobbies, halls, and booths.Â
- Offer extra customization features.
For a safe and secure virtual event, it is advisable to opt for a notable virtual platform like Virtual Days. It offers customizable virtual booths and quality features like AI-driven match-making which helps to drive and forge meaningful interactions and connections between attendees.
6.OFFER STIMULATING CONTENT
To engage attendees favorably, you need to sell them engaging content.Â
The content should be interesting, compact and to the point that will make the attendees understand the significance of the event and the purpose of your virtual booth. This way they will stay immersed in your virtual booth experience while at the same time, maintaining tab on other activities of the hybrid event.
Your content should ideally include,
- Keynote speeches delivered by industry experts.
- Interactive Panel Discussions with industry thought leaders.
- Live Product Demos with a detailed description of what it’s all about.
- Question & Answer sessions with exhibitors.
Aside from the above, also include
- Streaming Live Entertainment activities during breaks or after-event social activity programs.
- Interactive Polls and surveys to gauge the participants’ impressions of the event and your own virtual booth.
- Online Gaming activities and competitions that get online attendees interested to participate in them.Â
- Virtual workshops and training sessions.Â
It should also facilitate networking opportunities through virtual meet-and-greet sessions.
7. FACILITATE NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
Hybrid trade shows when compared to physical ones are better in facilitating networking opportunities. They facilitate networking opportunities for virtual as well as in-person attendees. It is an opportunity that can be harnessed if the technology is leveraged cleverly.
Virtual platform use virtual events software to schedule one-on-one meetings with exhibitors as well as other participants irrespective of their location.Â
The platform features and tools can be used to create virtual meeting spaces, chat rooms, roundtable discussions, and more. All of these will allow participants, in-person and virtual to connect with one another and network seamlessly for exploring business opportunities.Â
To get the whole process right, it’s better to partner with an events platform organizer.
8. DRIVE AFTER-EVENT ENGAGEMENTS
Your hybrid trade show would be a dampener without proper after-event engagement activities.
Towards this end,
- Create an engaging after-event marketing campaign. This will help to spread awareness among prospects about the purpose of the campaign.
- Leverage the power of social media and emailers to reach out to the target-audience. This will go a long way to promote the nature of pre-event engagement activity.
- Conduct a virtual webinar featuring expert guest speakers who share insights about the industry and show’s theme. This will help to build greater interest among registered participants about the importance of the pre-event.
If everything goes well, you can successfully engage the audience on whether they want to attend the hybrid trade show onsite or online.
