HOW-TO HYBRID CONFERENCE LEARNINGS
EUROPE AN FORUM ALPBACH
Dear reader! Extraordinary circumstances require new ways of thinking, planning and the use of different technical and analogue means to create a valuable conference experience. Before 2020, the European Forum Alpbach used to be the most analogue product you can imagine. Due to restrictions caused by the Corona-Pandemic we needed to completely reinvent our product and the way we work within our organisation within a very short period of time. The result was a 12-day long hybrid conference with more than 300 sessions, over 600 speakers and thousands of participants all over the world. To achieve this, we needed to quickly acquire new knowledge in various fields. As one of the first organisations who went through this exciting and also very challenging process, we want to share some of our main learnings in this short guide with you to make your life easier. Good luck with your event! Your European Forum Alpbach Team
CONTENTS
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Choosing a software Equipment Developing a programme Planning resources Contingency Briefing all stakeholders Post-event content utilization
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Choosing a software Before you choose a software, you should think about whether your sessions will be hybrid or virtual, how many of your guests will be in your studio, how many “only” on camera, etc. We looked at a number of different tools before we decided that Hopin fitted our needs best. If you plan something similar to the hybrid Forum Alpbach we recommend this tool. If you have different needs you might want to look at other tools, e.g.: Brella, Evia, Forum-Vision, Digitellinc, Converia, Heysummit, Intrado. They offer different features for speaker administration, ticket sales, networking, gamification etc.
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You want to conduct a needs assessment before you choose. Here are some criteria to consider: • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Scope and target group of your event Budget Maximum participant capacity Number of virtual session rooms needed Space for sponsor presentations Social interaction Networking, hosting and data protection Session formats (plenaries, breakout sessions, fireside chats, q&as, network speed dating, lounges, live music, short film screenings, pitches etc.) Ticket pricing Design Usability Employee access Disaster recovery options
Some governments restrict internet access or access to certain digital products (e.g. strong firewall). Keep that in mind in case you have high-level speakers or participants from countries which could be affected by such measures. Depending on whether your event is free or you are selling tickets you need an e-commerce tool. Some conference tools have an e-commerce solution among their features, others do not. Furthermore, you might have specific requirements towards your e-commerce tool e.g. the option to offer different ticket categories or payment methods.
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Equipment
Most conference tools available on the market do not require sophisticated equipment for a minimum streaming quality. However, depending on your budget and your expectations it might substantially increase the quality of your event if you hire a professional camera crew with streaming experience. We worked with “Ganslhaut” in Tyrol, Austria and they did all filming for the large panels on the main stage, sometimes played pre-recorded videos for the participants before the session started and made sure the speaker’s names were displayed on the stream. Additionally, each of our virtual sessions, so sessions where all panelists were calling in and no one was on our stage, were overseen by staff members. These facilitators helped the speakers to get into their virtual session rooms 30 minutes before the session started, fight technical difficulties during the sessions and in some cases, they even collected audience questions from the chat to pass them on to the moderator.
Regardless of what your event is about, there are some things you should consider when planning your programme for a hybrid conference. • • • •
60 minutes per session is enough (including Q&A) 3-4 panelists including moderator are ideal It is wise to book moderators who have moderated a digital event before. Do not schedule more than one session at the same time to make sure every session gets the maximum of possible attention.
In our experience, sessions taking place at regular working hours (Monday-Friday, between 09 am and 6 pm) received the most attention
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Developing a programme
Planning resources
For our conference we had different members of staff technically facilitate the sessions, moderate the global chat and questions and comments there, brief the speakers, answer participants’ emails and phone calls and help with troubleshooting. You also need at least one person as backup in case of technical problems on the side of the facilitator. If your staff is well trained in how to operate your software it does not matter where they are located. In our case there were three different geographic locations from where our people ran the conference and others contributing from many other places in the world.
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Do not underestimate the number of members of staff needed to facilitate a virtual session. For our virtual sessions (usually 4-5 speakers), we needed at least 1 facilitator and 2 team members to onboard the speakers and conduct technical briefings (in challenging cases, additional team members had to jump in). Roughly speaking, the key for a smooth speaker onboarding is 1 person of your organisation per speaker. Regardless how thoroughly you prepare your speakers and audience, some will always experience technical problems or confusion when trying to join your event online. We found, that despite written guidelines, FAQs and video tutorials some participants needed to be guided through the registration process by our staff on the phone.
Contingency
In case your conference tool experiences any technical problems during your live event you should be prepared to quickly move your stream to e.g. YouTube or Vimeo. Choose the right communication channels to tell your participants what is happening and where they can find the alternative stream since the chat in the conference tool might be down too.
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Post-event content utilization
Some tools offer the possibility to record your sessions and download them afterwards. If your organisation needs the video material for later use, make sure you have enough cloud/server space to safe the recordings. If you need the recordings right away (e.g. for the media) you should check whether they will be available right after the session or later. Digital events are a target for intended and unintended piracy. Consider this in your content strategy and inform participants and speakers about copyright or terms of use. Finally, make sure to download all available statistics on the reach of your event for your own documentation and possible partners.
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Briefing all stakeholders
SPEAKERS AND MODERATORS
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Make sure you and the facilitators have a phone number of all your speakers in case of technical difficulties. Your speakers need the following information: •
Name, date and time (+ time zone) of their session, names of other panellists, link to the session and information when they will receive it
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How and when to register for the conference
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What information (CV, Picture, Social Media Profiles) you need from them for your programme info
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Technical briefing on how to enter the session and technical requirements. We advise an internet connection of 15 Mbps upload and 15 Mbps download speed (at least 10 Mbps) and a headset for all virtual speakers. You might also want to consider that speakers who log in from high-level security institutions (e.g. ministries) might experience login difficulties due to a strong firewall. We recommend a test session ahead of the event to avoid technical difficulties. The technical briefing should start at least 1 hour before the session starts. Each speaker or moderator needs individual support preceding a session which needs to be thought of when planning resources.
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Before your speaker is live, you might want to check whether there are any visible or audible distractions in the background.
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SPONSORS If your event is sponsored by other companies or you are working with partner organisations you probably need to make their logos visible in your conference. Tell your sponsors in which file format to send their logos to you and consider the background colour of your digital logo wall when doing so. Sponsors are also likely to ask you how they can get in touch with your audience and show their products. Some conference tools offer digital expo hall features. Many conference tools charge you by the number of people who access your conference. Therefore, if you assign free tickets to your sponsors let them know that every ticket comes with a cost for you so they hand out the tickets to people who really intend to use them throughout the event.
To make sure your event is an enriching experience for your participants you need to inform them about: •
Your programme, time zone of your events (especially if your event is very international), how to buy a ticket, whether tickets are transferrable; Make it clear that the tickets are for an online event and do not require or permit on site participation!
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How to access the conference, tech support, troubleshooting; We did that with written manuals, video tutorials and FAQs on our programme website
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How to behave (Terms of Use, Code of conduct etc.) throughout the event and whom to contact in case someone behaves inappropriately towards them (hate speech, harassment, violations of your code of conduct etc.)
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Where to go for more information in case the stream is interrupted
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Whether there are any networking options or whether it is possible to get in touch with other participants
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Whether recordings of sessions will be available, and if so, where
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AUDIENCE
T H E A S S O C I AT I O N
European Forum Alpbach The first European Forum Alpbach took place in 1945 as the ‘International College Weeks’. Founded in 1948 as a non-profit association based in Vienna, it acts independently of any ideology, religion or political party. The association only functions thanks to the vast number of people who, with the exception of the organisation team, all give their time voluntarily to the Forum Alpbach. They have contributed to making the European Forum Alpbach one of the most important interdisciplinary dialogue platforms in Europe for science, politics, economics and culture today.
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In 2020 the EFA had to completely reinvent its format and conducted its first hybrid conference. More than 300 sessions with over 600 speakers from 23 countries around the world were streamed into the online conference.
Imprint: Publisher: Europäisches Forum Alpbach gemeinnütziger Verein Franz-Josefs-Kai 13/10, 1010 Vienna | Tel.: +43 1 718 17 11 | forum@alpbach.org Pictures EFA 2019: Bogdan Baraghin, Andrei Pungovschi, Jannik Rakusa, Matteo Vegetti, Iryna Yeroshko Other: Sebastian Philipp Editor: EFA Team