Whether virtual or in-person, event professionals are always looking for better methods of engaging their audience, retaining attention, and creating value. Here are three ideas focused on including remote participants in your events …
Make Remote Participants Part of the Show
Keeping the attention of all participants is a paramount concept for most event professionals. There are so many distractions … especially with virtual audiences! Making them part of the show is a great way to extend attention spans and overall engagement for everyone.
Try incorporating remote participants into the program feed on occasion. Schedule check ins before and/or after breaks or between segments of your presentation. Most technical production companies have the ability to capture at least one screenful of participants into their signal flow.
Pro Tip: This is especially effective for events with 100% virtual audiences.
Be Inclusive of Both Virtual and In-Person Audiences
Including remote participants is extremely important and will undoubtedly continue to grow as hybrid events evolve. Getting your virtual and in-person audiences to participate in an overtly transparent way helps everyone feel more connected to each other.
Social media data has become fairly simple to extract and repurpose. Adding a ticker, split screen, or full page design with live comments and profile pictures engages remote and in-person participants. It also develops a deeper, more intimate, connection to their peers. Of course, random notes from executives and other VIPs are fun too!
Dual-Purpose Staging Elements
Staging elements are the projection screens, LED displays, and monitor arrays that can display nearly anything that’s properly formatted or scaled. Often, these displays are only used for their primary purpose (graphics, IMAG, playback, etc.).
Dual-purpose staging elements are those that are intended to be utilized in more than one way. These elements can range from mild to wild …
Mild: Simple and Inexpensive
Many events utilize an upstage display for branding and/or presentation support. It’s fairly easy to populate the same display with Zoom participants during Q&A or a social media feed during breaks which reminds everyone of the broader audience.
Wild: Agency-Level Designs
Higher-end events often use technology to create forced perspective and/or different environments from various angles. An array of monitors with remote participants might only be seen by one camera. Another camera might have a strip of LED displaying social media posts or live chat in the background. When used sparingly or at specific times in the event, these elements elevate a production from run-of-the-mill to over-the-top.
In all three ideas, not only will the in-person audience see your remote participants and/or their comments and the remote folks will occasionally see themselves too. These methods engage both audiences, retain their attention, and create value by developing deeper connections.
At Encompass, we have unique backgrounds that situate us perfectly to produce high end and complex offerings. We’ve worked in broadcast television, touring entertainment, live sporting events, and countless convention facilities across the country.
We have technical design experience and a disciplined process in place that allows us to easily scale events and shift from in-person to virtual without angst. There isn’t much that’s beyond our scope and we love the intensity of putting on events!
If you’re a planner working to create an event, seeking help with virtual event technology, or simply want to learn more … we can help! Sign up below to receive our updates (we promise to keep your contact information secure and won’t “overshare”).