In-Person Events Will Be A Thing Of The Past And Here’s Why

In-person events are not dead, and we don’t think they will be completely faded out, just modified. What we do believe will be a thing of the past is fully in-person events. With the event industry rapidly changing over the last couple of years, how we define them is also changing. Instead of focusing on the medium, event planners are now focusing solely on the attendee experience. 

This is not an in-person versus virtual discussion, this is an in-person WITH virtual discussion. 

Recently, Forbes wrote an article on The Future Of Events Through The Eyes Of Industry Professionals, asking event professionals how they view hybrid and virtual events in the industry. In this article, Marco Giberti, co-author for the new book, Reinventing Live, compared post-covid events to traditional TV versus streaming or CDs versus Spotify. She says how communities will interact through the combination of virtual and face-to-face experiences in ways that will increase their return on investments and improve efficiencies. This trend will facilitate and accelerate hybrid events and a new generation of face-to-face event experiences”. And we agree!

This is why you should pivot your events to hybrid in 2022.

What Is A Hybrid Event?

If you’re still a bit confused or lost on what a hybrid event is or how they work, let us share a quick explanation before we get into the why of this post. Hybrid events are planned for both attendees from home as well as attendees that want to join in person. Events that are hybrid allow attendees who may not be able to travel, pay travel costs, or want to stay in the comfort of their home or office to participate and view the event just as those who are in person. 

If you want to learn more about what hybrid events are or how to plan one, check out our blog posts 9 Tips For A Successful Hybrid Event In 2022 and 5 Reasons Your Next Event Should Be Hybrid.

Increased Attendees and Sponsorship Opportunities

Before hybrid and virtual events, flexibility and accessibility weren’t really an option with in-person events. One of the biggest benefits of hybrid events is the increased number of attendees that can join your event. Reaching your attendees at home also means an opportunity for the people who aren’t able to attend your in-person event due to distance, time or other reasons. Overall, increase your number of registrations and sales! You also aren’t limited to the size of your physical venue. 

Another benefit of these increased attendance numbers is the opportunity to sell sponsorship packages to companies or organizations that wouldn’t have sponsored at an in-person event. They will also enjoy the larger number of attendees at your event. Allowing sponsors to have a virtual booth that attendees can visit makes it easier, and cheaper, for them to visit, engage and purchase your packages.

Higher Engagement

The amount of features you can add to a hybrid event versus a fully in-person event is a lot more engaging. The virtual attendees of your hybrid event are able to actively participate from their mobile devices or desktop computers. This means that although there are in-person audiences and speakers, they can all engage together with comments, gamification, live Q&A, network, interact with others and more. 

Lowered Event Costs

By growing your hybrid event audience, you can significantly lower the cost for everyone involved! While attendees are saving money with travel costs, hybrid events can also save your team and sponsors money travel costs as well.

Hybrid events also create a more sustainable way to host an event with a lower environmental impact. We’ve already seen this past year how lowering travel impacted the environment. It may also lower your in-person catering or disposable items involved in your event. Even though in-person events are still important, creating hybrid or virtual events is a great way to help lower your carbon footprint! 

Conclusion

The future of how we interact, network and attend events has been transformed and will continue to transform in the event industry. Hybrid and virtual events are not here to replace in-person events but work with them to create a better, and more inclusive, experience for attendees, as well as help us get closer to the in-person event experience.