Over the last few months, we have all experienced virtual meetings and gatherings in various forms and have a good understanding of what they look like and how they work. Beyond the fully virtual meeting, there are more options available to expand the reach and further engage with attendees. Hybrid Virtual Meetings offer many ways to reach your audience, engage in live events, and reach around the globe all in one event.
Convergence
Hybrid meetings are where live in-person meetings intersect with virtual meetings. TRG has been working with several of our clients for some time to stream all or portions of their meetings to teammates viewing from home or office. This allows the company to expand its attendance and share their message to those who are unable to attend the live event.
There are many more options to Hybrid meetings though.
Hybrid Meeting Types
Live Event Streamed to Virtual Audience
This is a format that has been in use for some time and likely familiar to many. An event is taking place at a central location with a set number of attendees. Cameras are set in the space to capture the presentations, videos, and live audience participation. Virtual attendees may be able to submit questions in advance of the meeting, or online through a moderator. The entire event can be recorded for later viewing for those unable to attend the live streaming event.
Live Event with Additional Live Gatherings
For this option, the main live event location is the primary location for General Session presentations. Additional locations are set up to allow groups of attendees to gather to view the General Session presentations as a secondary group. This can be repeated across multiple locations. This option allows a larger number of attendees to participate in the event; to have shared interaction with colleagues, and to have live breakout sessions within each gathering location.
In this scenario it is also possible to set up two-way feeds so the attendees in the Main Event location may view presentations from the secondary live gatherings, to further increase engagement across the enterprise. This is a great option for award presentations, Town Hall meetings, and regional reporting presentations.
Studio Presentation with Multiple Live Gatherings
In this option there is no main live event, rather there are multiple locations viewing presentations captured from a central studio location. As with the previous option, each of the live gathering locations would view the General Session presentations together and have the option to conduct breakout sessions live within their location.
This option also allows for two-way feeds to allow each live location to share to the studio as well as every other location.
Streaming to Virtual Audience
All the options available in hybrid meetings are also able to stream the entire session or sections of the content to remote individual participants.
All content is easily recorded to be made available in full or sections to attendees unable to participate in the live event.
Hybrid meetings allow companies to begin moving back to in-person meetings while keeping the attendance numbers lower for each live location.