A Brave New World: Digital Events Are Here to Stay. New Ideas.

#1

Hello fellow #Webinerds,

With many events going digital, you have most likely attended a virtual event yourself and taken part in a fun experience. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on “fun” and different things you have done or seen in recent digital events.

Thank you,
Alexandra in Houston

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#2

I liked the virtual campfire chat ON24 set up during Virtualized… it was a fun page where you could do things and via Groupchat you could chat with other attendees who were in there. I got a nice contact from it :slight_smile:

I’ve also seen people doing like Yoga breaks and I like that idea as well and want to see if I can incorporate something like this in an upcoming virtual event as well… something like chair yoga. My idea would be to record 1 awesome session or multiple short ones and see if I can keep reusing them :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

Hi Sanne,
Thanks for sending your ideas. I really like your Yoga breaks idea. How would you incorporate something like this? I’m assuming these Yoga breaks could be done during session breaks?

I also loved the ON24 campfire idea, but not sure how this was done.

What do you think about playing like a Trivia Pursuit game during breaks, and of course the top 3 winners win great prizes?

Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Alexandra :slight_smile:

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#4

Just wanted to add a couple more ideas:

  1. Have a Virtual Photo and Video Booth

The Photo Booth Guys boasts a cloud-based photo booth for virtual events, including whimsical backdrops and branding capabilities:
Test Drive: https://guestcam.selfmatic.co/MaltTraders

  1. Include a “Snack Break”:
  • Send Virtual Event Packs after the event, but only to people who answer questions, polls, provide an after event quote, or engage in some other way with us. https://thesnapbar.com/virtual-event-pack
  • VIRTUAL EVENT PACKS: How do you make online events better? How do you make digital feel tangible? These Virtual Event Packs help connect people, wherever they’re tuning in from.
  1. For stress relief:* Play With a Purpose, a teambuilding company with offices in Orlando and Las Vegas, offers a variety of virtual activities, including 20-minute guided group meditation designed to reduce anxiety, promote emotional health, and lengthen attention spans. Hosts can choose between 15 different guided journeys. The company can also facilitate philanthropy-focused challenges, such as a group project that creates artwork for local hospitals and first responders.
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#5

@alexandra.1 For the yoga breaks I have 3 options I am working on:
a. As an actual break out session people can sign up for
b. Just available On demand and people can watch it when they want it
c. In a longer session, have it as a 5 min break halfway through.

The campfire chat was really easy! It was just a gif/image/video that player from a campfire and the group chat was opened up. Perhaps @samira.mcdonald.1 can tell more about the campfire chat?

And I am all for gamification and playing games so I would schedule it. We are actually hosting a virtual escape room during an internal event at the end of the month. It will be designed/developed specifically for us/this occasion.

Sanne

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#6

We’ve been doing some bigger virtual conferences across multiple days that have been really successful. We’re a publisher, so we have brought in multiple advertisers to do almost trade-show-like presentations that are 15 minutes each with 6 presentations per session with 4 total sessions over 2 days.

They’ve been super successful with over 1,000 registrants and attendance in the 45-65% range.

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#7

What great ideas, Sanne. Thank you so much for sharing! :):grinning:

#8

We’ve been doing coffee chats with one of our partners where we provide Starbucks gift cards, and invite attendees to come have coffee with our reps and partner.

2 Likes
#9

Thanks Erica, these are great ideas.

#10

I attended a content marketing summit in April, and there were sessions that were done as fireside chats in front of the presenters’ gas fireplaces.

Rutgers University is doing monthly “lunch” presentations where you “brown-bag” it. And next month I’m attending a virtual wine tasting.

I think we can’t be afraid to try anything virtually.

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#11

In training sessions we use Kahoot, where the questions are in the conference screen and attendees use their smartphones to answer. It’s a hit every time.

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#12

Last minute marketing is essential

#13

Hey Ed! I’m intrigued by your use of Kahoot as we are starting to leverage this vendor. Do you see any delays within the webcast via Kahoot ? i.e. does the audience have a large delay when a kahoot is pushed? Interested in learning more if you have any insights to share.

Thanks!
Hailey

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#14

I haven’t had any issues other than some that happen sometimes even in the classroom, where one person’s screen might not refresh as another’s. But those have never stopped the overall fun of the games. Now that you can turn the Kahoot music off, you can still emcee the question.

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#15

I’m going to try to incorporate Flipgrid where participants can post video replies.

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#16

I loved designing a virtual booth for attendees to drop by and chat recently. It was interactive and we could schedule short meetings for our sales reps to engage with prospects. I would love to keep doing the virtual booth with other digital events where I can load all materials videos etc in one place and people can “drop-by” to chat.