How to Plan a Hybrid Event: Free Webinar to Discuss New Research, Future of Meetings Industry

by Nicole Wise on September 14, 2012

“Content is what gets people through the door, engagement is what keeps them there and makes them come back for more.”

Those are wise words from Emilie Barta, hybrid event consultant and virtual event host, who was surveyed in a new hybrid research project, released this week by Meeting Professionals International Foundation and sponsored by Mediasite Events by Sonic Foundry.

She’s one of many people quoted in the research discussing the practices, strategies and emerging trends of hybrid events – an event with at least one group of face-to-face participants connecting with others in one or more additional locations.

This is the first and most comprehensive hybrid event research ever created, and on Tuesday, you’ll have the chance to chat live with one of the researchers, Samuel J. Smith.

(Check out our blog post, New Research Shows Hybrid Events Won’t Cannibalize Your On-Site Attendance, for more info on the research.)

Sam is an event technology consultant who helps event owners identify interactive meeting technologies that are the best fit for their events. He has been in the business for over 13 years and started doing international events in 2006. He’s a regular contributor to EventCoup and Engage 365.

He’ll visit Sonic Foundry offices in Madison, Wis. next week to share the results of the survey, best practices, lessons-learned and much more.

You’ll learn:

Where we are as a meeting planning community on the hybrid learning curve
Insights on the challenges and opportunities with hybrid events
Where the gaps in expectations for the organizer and attendees exist
How to move past the feat of technology and cannibalization of face-to-face attendance

The webinar is free at 11 a.m. CT. To register, visit www.sonicfoundry.com/HybridResearchWebinar. If you can’t make it to the live webinar, it will also be available on-demand.

Sam also presented during MPI’s World Education Congress last month. You can watch his presentation, “Meeting Pros are from Mars, Attendees are from Venus; Techniques for Creating a Remarkable Hybrid Event,” for free on-demand at www.mpiweb.org/events/wec2012/hybridevent.

For more information, visit these links: