Hybrid events. What they are and how to ride an inevitable catchphrase.

As we are more aware of the overt contingency, we make a virtue of necessity. Whether it is a congress, event, lesson, concert or birthday: we cannot exempt ourselves from the theme of virtual and physical events.

As always, let’s start from the beginning and what is important: the experience we want to offer our guests, and focus on how so-called hybrid events can support brands and companies to build a meaningful and memorable experience. Modular at various levels, they are the perfect mix between what the physical event still has and will always have to offer, and the digital and virtual potential. Even before analyzing the technological muscles, let’s focus on the fact that there are semantic and experiential elements of both domains, which we can enhance in order to build a unique experience.

If the physical channel allows you to go to a concert, the virtual channel allows you to see it up close, live, as if you were among the musicians.

The technology, while very important, from an application point of view is merely an enabler of experiences, a tool for the event that will be planned and not the experience itself. Yet knowing the potential as well as the limits, the adequate configurations become fundamental. So let’s get some help right from the creative and project design processes.

Organizing a hybrid event means unifying the physical and virtual worlds. You can start from a physical event, no matter large or small, and build a dedicated digital solution around it. Or, by starting digitally, using the applications of the physical world to bring the experience from a virtual stage to the physical world. In both cases, the experience we will create will be amplified and enriched by the coexistence of these two worlds.

Let’s take a concrete example.

Guests physically experience an exclusive event. A broadcast direction broadcasts live through television, everyone sees the classic streams, with the addition of augmented and virtual reality content and/or 360-degree footage.

The various participants and users are involved by using interactive touch points, and made protagonists through real-time interaction. This can be achieved with web apps for surveys, exercises, games and in-depth content in augmented or virtual reality.

But it does not end here.

An event is a piece of the story. And as such it has a narrative that is drawn before, during and after the event. It is not just the coexistence of physical and virtual on the same event at the same time: hybrid events allow the event to be lived beyond the time of its physical reality.  It can continue in various forms, participated into by users, and renew itself up to the next edition and beyond, in a continuous string of interactions with our target.

To find out more about Virtual and Hybrid Events visit our page: Virtual and Hybrid Events.