Virtual events are becoming increasingly popular as more businesses move towards digitization. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to engage participants in the same ways as you can during in-person events.

Although you might have to use different methods to engage your participants, virtual events are still extremely beneficial. All you need is some prep time and a quick rundown of how to create an engaging virtual event.

If you’re in the midst of your virtual event planning and want to make sure it will engage your audience, follow the tips below.

Interesting & Engaging Content

It’s true that you’ll have to present content in a much more vibrant, energetic way or you’ll lose your audience’s attention.

When you’re creating the slides for your event, choose eye-catching photos and intriguing bullet points. Don’t fill entire pages with text and don’t assume you can talk about the same information for the full conference. Virtual fatigue is real, so make sure to break up the information and even consider adding breaks so that your audience can take in everything that you’re saying.  

Invite an Exciting Guest Speaker

The best event hosts are those that can captivate an audience even during a virtual event. You may not be able to bring in a celebrity host or a world-renowned speaker, but you should take the time to find an exciting guest speaker.

Guest speakers give your event a different dynamic. If you have one or two speakers for the same event, your audience is much less likely to get bored or distracted halfway through.

When you invite a guest speaker, make sure they have a good handle on the theme and know what they’re going to be talking about. They should be excited about doing the event too. An excited speaker is an exciting speaker.

Gamify Your Event

One of the best ways to increase engagement at your virtual event is with gamification.

When you gamify your event, you allow your audience to participate in a more concrete way. Winning points and prizes can encourage participants to pay more attention or follow through with what you ask them to.

Gamifying your event isn’t difficult. In fact, it’s easy to incorporate into your virtual event as you only need a few minutes. Rather than presenting them with information for an entire hour, make the last ten or fifteen minutes into a game that reviews all the information you’ve talked about.

Use Polling

Both pre-event polling and live polling can increase engagement before and during your event. Pre-event polling informs your participants how valuable attending your event will be for them. Using pre-polling, you can also determine what topics are of interest to your audience and tailor the event to suit them better.

If you use live polling, you’ll have an easy way to encourage participation and therefore, engagement. It’s an easy and simple way to interact with participants during the event without having to adjust your current theme or plan. The questions you ask in a live poll are unlimited and can make great transitions.

Create Social Media Contests

Almost everyone has social media these days, so why not take advantage of that? At the very least, you should create a hashtag that participants can use. You can then use the hashtag as a way to enter a contest or create more engagement.

With social media, your event will spread quicker and your audience will be more engaged from the start. When you incorporate a fun and free contest to go along with your event, more people are bound to participate. 

Conclusion

It can be difficult to engage your audience during a virtual event, but it’s certainly not impossible. With the many tools provided by the internet, you should be able to create a unique and engaging virtual event without much hassle.  Hire GSE AV today to help implement your Virtual Event, to get your message out effectively.

Virtual events can be finicky. The audio might be too soft or the videos might buffer or you might just notice problems with people being able to listen or participate. As the host of a webinar, meeting or convention, it’s up to you to make sure it’s successful. Read on to make sure that you’ve managed everything proactively and that you’re not dealing with any downtime.

How to Ensure a Successful Event for Virtual Streaming Webinars

Before you start, you’ll want to make sure that you have the technological requirements to keep your event running in the long term. This means having the right power, strong internet, and a place to back up your recordings. Only once you’ve checked your technology can you try to add other aspects to make your event all the more engaging.

Keep an Eye on your Power

First off, keep an eye on your power supply and power redundancy. Power redundancy is all about making sure that everything is plugged in to Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units, which will protect your equipment against any possible power spikes.

Beyond this though, you’ll want to have a dedicated generator that will keep your event ongoing in the case of extreme weather. Test your power and make sure that you can support a virtual event, even if you’re not in an area that might get hit hard by the weather. It’s never a bad idea to be prepared with your power supply.

Your Bandwidth

You don’t want to be in the middle of your meeting when your internet goes out, which is why you’ll want to make sure that you have internet connections prepared in your home, streaming studios, or venues.

Always make sure that you have a backup internet connection in case that your internet does go out, and have a fiber-based option, DSL or Coax, just in case you find that the wireless doesn’t work.

Backups and Recordings

You’ll want to record your webinars for future usage or for members who weren’t able to be at the live event. This means setting up this recording feature on your own technology, or working with a company like GSE AV to ensure that your meeting is right at your fingertips at the end of your event.

These recordings can be stored for up to 60 days or more with some companies, so you’ll have time to gather your information.

Personnel

You may want to consider working with a company like GSE AV if you want two streaming managers to help your project along. With them there, you’ll never have to struggle with sudden outages or problems—you’ll always have the knowledge right at your fingertips.

Of course, even if you work on your own, do always make sure that you have someone there that can understand the technology. This is the best way to ensure that you don’t experience any issues with outages.

Make Your Event Successful

Beyond all of the technical requirements to ensure a successful event, you’ll want to work to actually make your event engaging.

Nowadays, it’s really simple to do this using social media. Live tweet your event or add stories to share tutorials, videos, special effects, and more. Make your event fun—you don’t only have to stick to a strict corporate feel.

You can do this just by thinking about what message you want to get across, who your audience is, and how you think you’ll get the most amount of people to participate. This includes checking how inclusive your event is, and adding in captions, descriptions, and color contrast to make sure that everyone can participate.

Conclusion

There’s a lot that goes into a virtual event, from your technology set up to the actual event itself. If you want a successful event though, you’ll spend some time checking on your technology as you promote your event, send out tweets, and prepare your information. By the time your event starts, you’ll be ready to make it a good one. For more information on Orlando Convention AV Rental, contact us today!

With the rise of digitization, so much has changed around us. Even things like a virtual trade show is on the rise now and how we work hasn’t been exempted. Work meetings are being held online through messages, calls and video calls via platforms like Slack and Zoom. Going virtual has been the solution to most who are working from home. If you’re new to virtual conferences or feel rather unfamiliar with them, there are some tips to get the most out of your experience.

Way to Get the Most Out of a Virtual Conference

Things to do before the meeting

Organize your schedule

Plan ahead and determine what you need to get the most out of the meeting. Review and select topics and questions you might need to ask in advance.

Confirm contact details

Check whether the contact details provided are correct. Ensure that your full name and contact info like your phone number or email that you used for your registration are correct. This will enable the other participants to get in touch with you.

Find out if you’ll need to take notes

Get in contact with the presenters in advance and find out if the sessions will be recorded or if they’ll be sending notes. Just to be safe, you should prepare your notebook so that you can note down the important points.

Prioritize your time

You need to make the best use out of the meeting and therefore, you need to set up early. Set up a calendar and reminders to ensure that you don’t miss the sessions or any important topic.

Minimize distractions

Allocate some quiet space so you can focus on the virtual conference. The best would be a place that is quiet where nobody would cause you any disturbance. This will prevent you from being interrupted by noise or people.

Make sure your computer is ready

Check your computer to ensure that it’s working perfectly and you have all the applications you need. Check all the applications for recent updates. Also, learn more about the tools and familiarize yourself with them. Test your audio and video to ensure that they are working and have a strong wifi connection. The best would be to use a laptop and not a smartphone.

Dress well

While you can attend the entire meeting in any kind of clothes since it’s done virtually, it’s still important to look professional. It might be less formal compared to how you would dress when attending an in-person conference, but you still need to dress appropriately. Remember that you still need to make a good impression even on camera.

Things to do during the meeting

Avoid distractions

Remember to switch off your phone and even put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, especially if you’ll be attending the meeting from home.

Be present

You might not be in the same room with the speaker, but try to be present and pay attention. Don’t multitask by doing other activities during the meeting. Allocate the time for the conference to get the most out of the session.

Be an active participant

Actively participate by discussing and sharing ideas with other participants. Ask questions during the meeting and utilize the tools such as live chats to connect. You can schedule a session to debrief your team after the time of the meeting and share what you learned. The discussion will be beneficial both for you as well as everyone else.

Things to do after the meeting

Watch or listen to replays

Most virtual conference sessions are recorded and available for later viewing. If there are any replays or notes given after the meeting, watch and listen to them. They may help you catch up and learn more about something you may have missed.

Conclusion

These are some of the major tips to get the most out of attending a virtual conference. Put these tips into good use as you get ready to connect and enjoy the entire experience from the virtual live sessions.