You’ve planned your live event to the tee. Everything is in place and ready to be executed. Attendance looks good. All that needs to happen now is for the day to arrive.
Then, the evening before the event, you hear those infamous, dreaded words calmly being uttered by our president… “My fellow South Africans”. This makes you anything but calm. All of us in the events industry or those responsible for events in our company are familiar with the feeling of utter hopelessness and anxiety all too well by now.
The lockdown level has been increased, rules for hosting indoor and outdoor events have been altered, and your event is clearly not going to happen.
One thing that we have learned from the past two years of battling through a pandemic is that one must be adaptable to all circumstances. Businesses even more so. So, now is not the time to panic or to chug down the bottle of wine in the fridge.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. The only way for your physical event to continue is by converting it to an online experience. Here are a few tips on how to make that happen:
- Confirm that your organisation has staff members that can support and manage the technical aspects of a virtual event.
- Ensure that your organisation has a virtual meeting solution and that you can handle the bandwidth.
- Update the event website and communicate to attendees that the event is going virtual and the reason for the change. This can be done via email, social media platforms, etc.
- Let attendees register for the online event ASAP.
- Provide attendees with a guide on how to attend the event virtually.
- In the agenda, add links to the session recording or live broadcast.
- Organise speakers to either join the event virtually or if possible be recorded in a studio with a green screen for a better virtual experience for the audience.
- Ensure that all presentation materials such as PowerPoints, Keynotes, or videos are accessible by your chosen virtual meeting platform.
- Set up a smart visual storytelling strategy by incorporating aspects like a presenter or MC to guide the events, an entertainer between segments, online quizzes, audience polls, virtual Q&As, etc. This will help you initiate interaction with attendees through live, active participation, not passive viewing.
Yes, you might have some losses changing your in-person event to a virtual one at the last minute, but at least you’re not cancelling it completely. On the contrary, you’ll be saving on production costs, and you’ll get the opportunity to engage with your audience in a whole new way.
Urban Motion Events is the friend to lean on when you find yourself in a situation like this. We specialise in helping in these types of circumstances. You are already stressed because of this whole dilemma, let us help you easily and without any hassles convert your live function to a virtual experience. And even though regulations might be more relaxed at this stage, we never know what the future might hold. Keep us on speed dial for instances like these.
You can reach us here.