Amid the rise of the global pandemic COVID-19, the world had never seen such a rapid response to human gatherings for special occasions and events.
The hardest hit were the event management organizations as the effect trickled down to them not in months but days. The world all together became a different place than it was before the ending quarter of 2019.
In the wake of this unprecedented panic, most of the events were either canceled or postponed and there were no contingency plans with even companies to address the situation.
At the onstage of the new scenario, event organizers found themselves playing a different ball game altogether. The event managers found themselves reorganizing and streamlining the same events with the help of technology and now even a larger number of events are running on different online platforms.
Introduction
A virtual event leverages communication technology to enable two or more professionals to interact or collaborate, in contrast to physically meeting with each other. The event organizers facilitate these meetings.
The cost of a virtual event is very minute spent when it is compared to a physical event as the logistics and venue cost are not required but it does take effort to keep people engaged online.
Test and Plan the System Beforehand
When organizing a virtual event, make sure the software and hardware equipment is intact and in working order to avoid any eleventh-hour hassle. Make sure that as an organizer you have a checklist of all the requirements of the client. This may include your client may want the event to be recorded or he or she may want to play a video during the event.
On the same note, you should be certain of how many people are joining the virtual event. How long is the event going to be, and how many breaks there should be, etc.
Zero Compromise on Quality
Time is becoming the most scarce and valuable resource, and people want to spend time with quality experience. In a world where everything is going virtual, the quality should never be traded for less or more of something else.
As an event organizer, give your customers the utmost virtual meeting experience. Everything from the sound to the picture to top-notch event speakers, the best should be your pursuit. Organizers have to engage and listen to the audience in different ways for their feedback. To assess how successful an event is, collect testimonials and run plenty of polls and surveys. Determine where you stand and find avenues to improve.
Event Advertisement
Traditional marketing and advertising are going through a slow death. Online advertisement or Internet marketing is the new norm. As an event planner, you should have to work closely with social media managers and online marketers to come up with marketing strategies that attract and audience to your events as well as reaching all other kinds of talents such as models and professional speakers, cameramen, and photographers to grace the virtual event.
Moreover, your website should be professionally built and should be very intuitive to navigate helping visitors to easily sign up for the events and pay the fees with reliable and easy forms of payment methods.
Generate Engaging Content
It is perhaps the most important piece of advice you can get for event management. You should focus more on the content than anything else except technology. If your content is powerful and engaging it will make people come back to you again and again.
Research shows that the attention span of the coming generation of people is on the decline. Keeping this in mind cut short the programs in the event into digestible pieces. Constructive debates, informative discussions, and speeches should be short and pleasant.
Avoid from the boring stuff to the minimum, unless it is the meat of the event, it should be tactfully presented comically.
Technology is the Biggest Deal
The technology can make your event a success or a failure. If there is a technical issue in one of the components of your event platform during or before an event, it takes everything with it. The success of your event very heavily owes itself to the technology and the technical staff that is running it.
The way to make sure that the event goes well and smooth, make sure you hire well experienced and talented technical and IT professionals and equip them with reliable and well-designed gadgets making sure that your technology side is safe when it runs.
The events are memorable moments in the life of people and as an event organizer has the responsibility and sometimes a passion to make it desirable. The event planner has to make sure that people who join events, spend time with other people and with things they care about in a unique and enjoyable way.