Courtney Kehl

Hi, everyone. We are so glad to have you joining us today. Apologies for the delayed start, but we we are live now and very excited to be talking about hybrid events. I am so thrilled to have LD note all joining us and going into the fall season this year, going to be bigger and better than ever coming out of last year where everything was just shut down on the physical front.

So let’s dive right in and go ahead and put up our, our supporting signs here on the content. So let me get that pushed up hybrid events, all the key information your organization needs to know and how to get the most value out of it. I can not do Eldy justice in introducing her. She is an absolute subject matter expert.

And let me go ahead and pass the ball over to Eldy. Take it away with an introduction on experience and background. Hi, Courtney,

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

it’s working. Yeah, I actually have about 20 plus plus years of experience in the high-tech world here in the bay area in events and events, marketing. I really enjoy events, but I really liked the marketing side of things.

So it’s there and I love technology, which is interesting. Cause sometimes they have some issues with technology. But I love working with Courtney. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve worked with her and EMA is a great partner to have, and I’m so thrilled that she asked us to be part of this.

Courtney Kehl

Absolutely. We would not have anyone else when it comes to. So let’s dive right in. Why should we go hybrid? What’s in it for you? I mean, where do, what are the advantages? I’m absolutely thrilled and excited again with, with the fall season coming up, there’s so many opportunities. Let’s talk about

that.

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

Yeah. So I see on the screen, we have some metrics here. I totally, you know, metrics are very important. We have seen some uptick in business and professional, online events. And also the online events are repeatable, so that’s always important. One of the things it’s, what’s in it for you is increased reach and attendance.

So not only do you get those people who want to be live, you also get those virtual attendees. There’s also a higher engagement level to a hybrid event. Based on what I said before with the merging the two definitely improved ROI, you know, valuable data and metrics and yeah. More sponsorship opportunities, I believe is really a key when you have an event that has sponsors because now your sponsors, don’t not only have.

A reach to those live P live attendees. There also have a reach to those virtual attendees. So it’s the best of both worlds. And I’m really excited that this is coming up and there’s some events already planned in the planning cycle to do hybrid events. So we’re going to see a lot of fun things coming up.

Absolutely

without a doubt. One in particular that really just got my brain. Just turn it on. All cylinders is Dreamforce. I mean, Benioff is hitting every single city across the world. The same week, both virtual, as well as physical. And there’s going to be massive.

I am, I’m actually part of that team.

And so it’s very exciting to be on these planning calls. There’s a lot going on and it’s going to be very exciting. I’m really excited to be part of the part of that

Courtney Kehl

huge it’s going to absolutely change history of. Yep. Awesome. Well, let’s talk about some of the challenges and things that folks need to take into consideration as they are both a part of hybrid events is there are sponsoring as well as planning one of their own.

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

Yeah. So it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of challenges, right? I mean, there’s always challenges in any type of events, whether they’re virtual or on live, but you got to treat both as, as one event, you can’t do cyber grid, right. You have to, you have to make sure that they. The, when you do the planning, you do the strategy, you do the content, you got to make sure you’re looking at it as one event, not two.

And that goes into managing logistics, the cost of management, the challenge. Everything has to be as one event event content is key. But it’s also a challenge is how do you engage those live attendees as well as those virtual? So the content has to be right on point for both. And then event technology, right?

It’s gotta be, you gotta get the right event technology partner to help you because you don’t want to have issues with technology. You don’t want to lose those virtual attendees if your technology fails. Cause they’re not gonna come. I mean, hands down, we’ve seen it in virtual events. In 2020 is people, if they get disengaged or the technology doesn’t work, they just go off and do their own thing.

So you’re going to lose them. So an event event, technology partners, key, and then the other challenge is various time zones. And that’s a, that’s a huge one. Yeah.

Right, right. I’ve done things where you know, all virtual, we followed the sun. The time zone thing is definitely something we follow the sun through, you know, across Asia, across Europe, and then, you know, over to New York and across here to.

To California. So

I don’t want to lose, you don’t want to lose those international or other people in different time zones by not engaging them as well. Cause that’s a huge, that’s a huge amount of people. Sure that you

do it correctly. Right. Awesome. Great. So let’s think about merging those two, both the both experience, the in-person and as well as the virtual, how do we merge those together and make sure people on the ground as well as in the air getting the same experience or, you know, the, the similar type of content and

Courtney Kehl

that’s, tricky.

I think people are still trying to figure that out. Right now as we speak stay on schedule and this is critical. You know, again, you’re going to lose those virtual. You’re not gonna lose the live ones, but you’re going to lose those virtuals. If you don’t stay on schedule you’ve got to make an impression that’s huge.

That’s what the content right? Content content, and also engaging everyone. That’s that’s part of that event. That’s partly games and boots, maybe. I mean, you know, that’s still being played out. I mean, the boots part is really hard. We’ve seen that in virtual events. How do you engage people on these virtual booths?

Some are better than others, but were they, they struggle. I think people struggle with that. So that’s, that’s another thing people are trying to figure out what’s the best way to engage those virtual attendees. When you have live boots at the shows. I think that’s, that’s playing out right now and there’s a lot of discussion on.

You also want to make sure that you have an event partner to do like the virtual side of things, but also the live side of things and make sure that they work conducive together as a team. And they’re constantly talking about. And you know, make sure your speakers regularly acknowledge the folks calling remotely, right?

Because what happens when you have a speaker talking, you know, they’re talking to the live audience, but then they forget about those virtual ones. You want to make sure that they are, they are not an African. So you want to make sure those speakers know that and they talk to those virtual attendees as well,

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

stay coordinated, right?

Yup. Yeah. Make sure you’ve got an admin that is, is paying attention.

Courtney Kehl

Exactly.

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

Yeah, absolutely. All of these components come together. It’s not as simple as just wave a magic wand. Yeah. There’s a lot that goes into it. Yeah. Great. Great. So, so let’s talk about making sure that audiences are engaged and this is a huge sticking point. This is how you’re you bring folks together and absolutely the demand gen behind it.

My background is demand gen. We want to make sure after the event your, your folks, your sales folks can reach out and your audience remembers your company in particular, and that’s going to come from making sure your audience is engaged all the

Courtney Kehl

way through. Yeah. And so there’s a lot of ways to do that.

And we’ve been on these focus groups in these forums talking about what, how, how best to do that. And this is the hard one. As we know as event people, when you do live events, you can engage them. Anyway. It’s really easy to do. It’s all on a fun stuff. There’s a lot of networking and there’s a lot of talks, but how do you engage goats?

Right? The virtual and the live audiences, shorter sessions are one of them. Keep your session short and snappy. You know, we want to make sure that people are engaged that way. Breaks and breakouts are really key scheduled, regular breaks into your agenda to both the in-person and virtual to take, you know, for people can take a step back and recharge their batteries.

And then how do you offer some virtual entities? Right. That’s a hard, that’s a hard one. Do you do other things, you know, maybe do a guided meditation for those live you know, attendees and also those virtual ones, so they can unwind. And that’s still coming up, right? People are still trying to figure that out.

And then content is key. You know, we’ve all heard the phrase content is king and that’s never been more true than a hybrid event. We got to make sure that, and then the other one, or the two, really the high ones for me are interaction and networking. How do you, how do you get that together? How do you get the live attendees to interact and network with those virtual events?

Attendees? That’s a little bit more difficult, right? And so there are apps out there that people are building to do that, right. Do we have an app that people are talking to each other because they’re live and they’re virtual and they’re chatting and, and maybe we do some fun stuff. Again, that’s, that’s in the works.

People are thinking about it. The people are building apps. But those are the that’s. The big one I think for right now is the interaction and networking between the virtual and the hype and the library.

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

Absolutely. No, absolutely makes sense. A lot of what we’ve discussed there does leave some, some exciting things to pay attention to with this fall, this upcoming season of events, I I’m excited.

I marketing for me has always been fairly predictable. There’s no reason for things to be hair on fire, given how, how many years we’ve been in the. In this, in this career, but with this 2021 season and the hybrid approach now coming to the table is actually a whole new ball game. And. When you’re, when we have to start paying attention to what others are doing and how we can, you know, even elevate it and amplify it even more.

It’s, it’s bringing you know, new, new and exciting ideas to the table.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be a lot of fun stuff coming up. I really do. I mean, just by all the meetings I’m in and all the chats and all these things, it’s going to be interesting. I think it’s going to be a blast. I really do.

I’m really excited.

Absolutely. There’s like a whole tidal wave. That’s about,

Courtney Kehl

it feels like

Eldy Nodal-Suarez

sometimes. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for joining. And if you enjoyed this talk, please reach out. We’d love to talk shop we’re. We’re always, always talking shop. It’s hard to get us to talk about much else.

Thanks so much for joining and please reach out. And anyone, if you’re interested in talking more. Alrighty.