Ensuring that your event or conference gets the most attention and has the highest attendance possible has gotten easier over the years. While in years past, the attendance for events was limited to the maximum occupancy of the venue. With the introduction of virtual event platforms, this barrier has all but been removed.
Announcing new products, ideas, or simply getting the whole family together for a birthday has gotten easier. Getting everyone together in one place is a thing of the past. Creating a meaningful moment for your company, organization, or family and friends has gotten as easy as simply having a stable internet connection.
Related reading: 9 Reasons why Hybrid Events are crucial for your business.
What Kind of Events Can be Hosted on a Hybrid Event Platform?
Essentially any event you plan to host where part of the guest list will not be able to attend can and should be hosted on a hybrid event platform. Here are just a few examples of events:
- Parties: These parties can include workplace functions, birthday parties, weddings, funerals, and more. Your private events do not need to be restricted to only those that can physically make it. With the world getting smaller, family reunions are getting harder to bring everyone together in one place. Don’t limit their engagement to a designated facetime person.
- Meetings: Virtual conferencing has been a growing practice for quite some time now. After health concerns have become a more significant concern when piling groups of people in small spaces, the use of hybrid event platforms has revolutionized this practice. Now meetings can involve more company associates, partners, customers, and more. All without having to have them all present in one place.
- Conferences: Large conferences with multiple speakers and vendors are the perfect place to experience every feature an enterprise event platform has to offer. You can ensure that all attendees, speakers, and exhibitors get access to the right messages and audiences with the right hybrid event platform.
- Lectures: This can include sales pitches, large group work orientations, and more. On the academic side, students have had a fun time navigating virtual platforms like Zoom and then transitioned to hybrid in-person and virtual lectures and presentations. This hasn’t exactly been a smooth process, but if your company or organization regularly participates in these hybrid functions, contracting with a hybrid event platform can ensure that process runs a bit smoother.
- Anything: If you have any reason to bring people together and have a strong, dedicated internet connection, you can utilize a hybrid event platform.
No matter your purpose, hybrid event platforms can assist you in bringing everyone together.
What Features to Look for When Looking for a Hybrid Event Platform
While the base purpose of a hybrid event is to allow more guests to attend that wouldn’t have made it otherwise, hybrid event platforms also offer more features. When selecting your enterprise event platform, consider if you may need one or all of these features:
- Content Distribution: Planning all the ins and outs of an event can be a hassle. The content you wish to distribute to your attendants must meet the needs of all parties involved. This includes the speakers, vendors, and guests. Your hybrid event platform may have features that allow different forms of content distribution, such as live streaming, live audio, pre-recorded content, and much more. This ensures that all relevant parties have access to the content they need.
- Brand Awareness: Your guests need to be aware of your brand whether they are in person or utilizing the virtual event platform. Your registration, landing, and navigation pages for your event platform must be capable of representing your company correctly. This includes using colors, jingles, logos, and other brand-identifying trademarks—the more customizable, the better. For example, Event Engage offers an array of options for color schemes and company logo placement for users to engage with.
- Customizable Itineraries: If you have ever attended a large conference or event, you are presented with a single itinerary. This single itinerary is filled with small print guest and demonstration highlights that you may have to constantly flip back to. For the hybrid event platform guests, these itineraries can be customizable. Guests can click on speakers or displays that they want to view and add those to their personal event calendars.
- Virtual Participation and Engagement Options: This can include ways for virtual attendees to communicate with in-person attendees. A more critical role this feature will take is the ability to engage during Q&As and other session-related engagement portions. Virtual guests may have a relevant question or comment, and the speaker’s time should equally go to those individuals and the in-person guests.
- Virtual Booths: Connecting with your vendors, exhibitors, and sponsors to see if they’re interested in a virtual both is also a must. You may want your event platform to have the capability to offer these participants the ability to set up their own segment of the platform.
- Metrics: A unique element to hybrid event platforms is the ability to advance metric tracking and reporting. You can utilize this data to see which attendee attended with session and how many guests viewed each session. This offers your company and sponsors valuable information on how to reach these guests with relevant information. Some metrics can also include engagement, dwell time, and events guests attended. This information will help create guest profiles to better target them for business and possibly sales needs.
Hybrid event platforms may offer many more features that are not listed here. Make sure to do your research so that you get the most out of your hybrid event platform.
Related reading; 4 practical ways Event Marketing can grow your business.
Top Hybrid Event Hosting Platforms
As you consider your needs for your next event, landing on an event hosting platform that is right for you is paramount. You want to make sure that the virtual event platform offers everything that you need.
In no particular order, here are the top 6 Hybrid Event Platforms to choose from:
1. Event Engage
Event Engage is a robust hybrid event platform that allows users to tailor their events for a few guests to thousands. Some of the features include:
Marketing Tools: Uses features like a landing page tailored to your company, email collection for personalized FDM, implements a tracking pixel, and allows you to sync with your favorite marketing CRM.
Branding: This allows you to bring over coding from your company website to help the platform match your website and will enable you to bring over labeling and other designs and images.
Registration: Along with a dynamic landing page, Event Engage offers several other registration features. These features include multiple language options, payment, promo code usage, and logic-based registration forms.
Accessibility: Accessibility is usually something you consider when it comes to physical access. With Event Engage, there are not only various language options but the events are automatically optimized for different screens and bandwidths. They can also reach audiences behind firewalls, such as in countries like China.
Customization: Event Engage offers significantly more features surrounding customization, user roles, self-serve modules, networking, moderation, and more. Their extremely robust platform provides a wide array of features that would be helpful for any event.
2. Aventri
Aventri markets itself as a one-stop shop for all your event needs. They provide users with many features that include:
Streamlined Planning: This hybrid event platform allows you to create automated processes so that you don’t have to do as much.
Brand Awareness: Through the landing page and other elements of the virtual platform, your business and brand are spread so that guests will recognize and be aware of your participation.
Engagement: Guests are provided with numerous ways to participate. This participation can be with vendors, exhibitors, speakers, or other guests.
Data Integration: To increase fluid transitions between your company and the event platform, Aventri has implemented a data integration feature.
Experience Event Professionals: Event professionals are available for you to utilize and plan your event so that you can focus on running the operations rather than the event setup and planning.
3. EventMobi
EventMobi focuses on creating events for multiple venues and platforms. Their hybrid event platform offers many features that include:
Flexible Event Solutions: This feature includesin-person and virtual streaming, on-demand streaming, and asynchronous virtual and in-person streaming.
Customizable Designs: EventMobi allows users to promote their events as well as create pages tailored to your company and event.
Networking: Guests can create detailed profiles that other guests they’re connecting with can use to network with them once the event has concluded.
Engagement: Polls, surveys, and gamification are among the multiple features offered to enhance engagement.
Related reading: Virtual Event Marketing Ideas; secrets revealed.
4. Hopin
Is a company that offers many different services surrounding event planning. The plans and features are easy to use and include:
Any Size: While some platforms have a minimum amount of guests permitted, Hopin doesn’t require your hybrid event to have a minimum. This allows for different types of events to be hosted.
Registration Features: From the tailored landing page to offering guests information about the event, Hopin gives users an easy experience.
Networking: The platform allows guests to network one on one with other attendees as well as set up group conferencing.
Simple Streaming: The format is very professional and easy to use so that speakers and event hosts can deliver their messages without many technical issues.
On-Demand Content: Hopin provides a library of the sessions that have been streamed so that guests can go back and watch or rewatch sessions that they have already seen.
5. InEvent
InEvent offers many high-quality features you can easily implement at your next event. These features include:
Name Badges: Physical and virtual name badges that offer guests access to various parts of the event based on the level of the badge they purchased.
Virtual Lobby and Video Conferencing: InEvent offers a virtual lobby and video conferencing for guests to network and gain connections.
CRM Integration and Data Management: Users can take advantage of advanced features that allow them to organize all the information about attendees and speakers as well as create and follow schedules.
Registration: Customizable landing pages tailored to match the company’s look and design to create branding.
Travel Information: A unique feature is real-time logistics for guests and speakers or vendors to ensure everything runs smoothly on all sides.
6. Communique Conferencing
Communique Conferencing offers an array of features to enhance your hybrid event. Some features include:
Event Registration: Communique Conferencing comes complete with valuable information about the event and a landing page tailored to your event.
Event Networking:Settings and interactive features that allow attendees to communicate and network
Gamification:Options that allow those that are utilizing the virtual event platform to check off events they attended to rank themselves next to other attendees.
Attendee Engagement:Built-in engaging activities targeted specifically to online guests.
Reporting and Analytics:To provide relevant parties with guest information and behaviors while attending sessions online.
When choosing your hybrid event platform, you will likely find everything you need from any one of the platforms listed. The features mentioned are not exhaustive, but by now, you should have a clear idea of which platform might offer you something that you need.
Host Your Hybrid Event
Make your next event memorable by contracting with one of the best hybrid event platforms. Don’t let the constraints of in-person venues prevent you from reaching new clients, family members, or colleagues worldwide. Taking advantage of hybrid event platforms is the modern way to host every event, and it will only continue to become the normal place in all industries.
If you are looking for a company that offers a great tool & can also help you to set things up, we would definitely recommend talking to EventEngage.