In today’s growing event landscape, hybrid events have become a dynamic solution that blends in-person and virtual experiences. To ensure the success of these events, it’s essential to move beyond simply delivering content and create transformational experiences that foster meaningful connections and engagement. For hybrid events to stand out, they must offer an immersive and entertaining environment that captivates both live and virtual audiences.
One of the key strategies for enhancing engagement in hybrid events is through gamification— it adds an interactive layer that keeps participants invested in the event’s activities, regardless of their physical location. This engagement technique works well because it taps into intrinsic motivators like competition, achievement, and social recognition, and also helps organisers ensure that everyone feels part of the same shared experience.
Hybrid events can also benefit from creating opportunities for meaningful connections that bridge the gap between live and virtual participants. Attendees, whether physically present or remote, can engage with one another in real time, thus fostering a sense of community. Gamification can be integrated into these interactions, encouraging collaboration, team-building, and participation.
Everything Experiential spoke to industry experts who outline how hybrid events can be made successful by going beyond content and involving meaningful connection and entertainment, as well as integrating gamification.
Going beyond Content
There is no doubt that content is king. However, with the effort to go beyond that to create transformative experiences that foster meaningful connections, Pramod Gaikwad, Co-founder, Ice Global understands that various strategies can be utilised to achieve this using technology and engagement tools:
1. Personalisation: Use available data and information about the audiences to create tailor-made content to engage with the audiences.
2. Story-telling: Use a narrative manner to bind the event together. Tell compelling stories to create an emotional bond with audiences.
3. Two-Way Communication: Let the audience be a part of the programme. Let them have a say and make the agenda agile enough to incorporate their suggestions.
4. Build interaction: Create breakout rooms to engage audiences in smaller groups to have more real and effective communication. Use tools like whiteboards, Q&A, polls, etc. to allow more participation. Use tools that simultaneously engage both remote and in-person audiences.
5. Real-time Feedback Loops: Throughout the duration of the event, encourage audiences to share their experiences. Use this to push the event emotionally higher and build bonds.
Vidya Alva, Chief Operating Officer, Percept Ice also suggests some pointers, many being an add-on to Gaikwad’s views. “First, we need to focus on personalisation. Customising the event experience to each attendee’s preferences makes them feel valued and engaged. AI-driven tools help track participant behaviour, preferences, and interests, allowing our agency to suggest relevant sessions, networking opportunities, or activities based on their profiles.” Whether attendees are in-person or remote, this creates a personalised journey that goes beyond standard event content delivery.
Another important aspect, she mentions is creating opportunities for interaction, seconding Gaikwad. This means going beyond just streaming content. Interactive elements like live polls, Q&A sessions, and breakout sessions, allow participants to actively engage rather than passively consume / view information, Alva explains. She cites an instance, “During expos, we take the entire expo virtual with real-time 360-degree shoot and touch-points of interaction to get virtual attendees to interact with individual stall representatives on orders, queries and other aspects.”
Alva also points out that curated networking is another way to foster connection. From AI-based matchmaking, where participants with shared interests are paired for meaningful interactions, to video meet-ups, virtual lounges, and breakout sessions that mix in-person and virtual attendees have helped to bridge the physical gap to ensure everyone feels included. “When we created the Sintex Annual Meet, we had the top management of Sintex interact live with the top dealers for a bespoke, high-level, memorable engagement
Immersive technology like AR/VR significantly enhanced the experience by recreating physical spaces in the digital realm, allowing remote attendees to explore the venue, interact with exhibitors, or join sessions. This type of immersive experience creates a deeper emotional connection to the event, making it more than just a screen-bound interaction,” she states.
Needless to say, storytelling is also essential. Crafting a narrative that resonates with attendees on an emotional level can transform an event into a memorable experience. “Whether through compelling keynote speeches, engaging video content, or live storytelling, we focus on content that speaks to the heart as much as the mind. This builds a sense of shared purpose and fosters a deeper connection to the event's themes and other participants,” says Alva.
Fostering community engagement before, during, and after the event is key. Alva reveals, “We have embedded concepts where attendees can connect with each other through event apps, social media groups, or forums where they can share insights, engage in discussions, or collaborate on projects. By extending the conversation beyond the event itself, we have nurtured a community that lasts long after the event ends, ensuring that the connections made are meaningful and enduring.” During their hybrid events, they make use of commonly used media applications such as WhatsApp to ensure connection with the community on a convenient and consistent basis.
Gamification
Gamification is always an exciting way to liven up any type of event. Gaikwad believes that gamification not only allows the audience to participate, it also creates a sense of challenge among the audience that quickly lifts the energy of the audience.
According to him, in the case of hybrid events, various tools and/or apps can be employed to gamify an event. Few of these are:
Team-based activities: Creation of various cross-functional teams participating. Each team must feature both in-person and virtual participants. The project will feature a leaderboard to keep the competitive spirit on.
One can decide whether the teams would remain the same across the duration of the event or change with the day/activity – puzzles, quiz contests, photo contests, trivia contests, third-party apps (one can utilise 3rd party apps to create collaborative online games) and Metaverse (in this, the on-ground participants would use their phones/laptops to join the Metaverse)
He specifies that it is important the rewards exciting to keep the energy levels high. “Gamification stirs the human spirit and having said that, it becomes paramount to get a good game host to conduct the activities.”
Alva also comments that one effective strategy in utilising gamification is incorporating trivia and quizzes into the event. “This adds a layer of competition by asking attendees questions related to topics they care about. It’s a fun, interactive way to keep them invested in the content while offering something beyond passive participation. By integrating trivia into the event app, we can make it accessible to both in-person and virtual audiences.”
They have also had great success with live contests. Dividing the audience into smaller groups, they host real-time quiz contests through a mobile app, allowing on-ground attendees to collaborate with virtual participants. This approach fosters a sense of unity across both formats, turning what could feel like two separate events into a more cohesive experience, she adds.
Alva highlights that to reward virtual attendees, they have introduced the concept of virtual swag bags. “While on-ground attendees often receive physical swag, we have coordinated with sponsors to offer digital options for those attending remotely. This also creates an additional touch-point for sponsors to engage with the virtual audience.”
She quotes some examples, “During our brand engagement with Snapchat at Sunburn and Lollapalooza festivals we successfully created a giant-sized Snap AR Mirror which got on-ground audiences engaged with the brand's platform real time. Guests posted these images on their social media handles therein creating a buzz about Snapchat’s unique brand engagement and amplifying the positive PR buzz.”
Very evidently, as technology continues to evolve, the future potential for hybrid events is huge. Innovations in AI, ML, AR, VR and 5G connectivity will enhance the experience even more, making it even more seamless and interactive.
“The emphasis on inclusivity and hyper-personalization will drive the next wave of hybrid event design,” wraps up Gaikwad.
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