VIRTUAL – EVENT DESIGN
EVENT DESIGN – NEW CHALLENGES GOING VIRTUAL IAPCO Member: INTERPLAN Congress, Meeting & Event Management AG, Germany Author: Nils Molly, Digital Business & Innovation
Over the last few months the events industry has been
Let us take a brief look at a couple of options that
turned upside down. Event design as we knew it until this
an organiser has:
year is, at least for the moment, invalid. Bringing people together and the exchange of knowledge remain our main
Virtual-only interactions start and stop with logging in and
goals – but how to do this has changed 100%. When the
logging out, so the focus of the event design should be mainly
COVID-19 pandemic broke out in mid-February the entire
upon the customer journey across the virtual platform –
industry was forced to go digital. The only options in the
a mostly technical element.
beginning seemed to be cancellation or postponement. Then the virtual meeting came along.
Never forget to communicate with your audience. Email, push notifications, a simple ticker. As always, communication
Whilst a full-blown virtual meeting was never an alternative
is key – keep everyone informed on what is happening on
to a live event due to lacking the element of social interaction,
the platform, when the session will start, or when it is late
it was suddenly the only cure for an industry that had come
or postponed. It will be greatly appreciated.
to a sudden halt. Try adding simple ‘human’ interactions such as, for example, Event design to me has a lot to do with empathy and
online exercises during breaks. This will bring relief to the
interpersonal relations, something that is very tough to
audience, who will need a break after sitting for a long time
replicate in a virtual environment. Whilst many are
watching a live stream. Employ a networking software, either
discovering videoconferencing for the first time and
text-based or with one-to-one videoconferencing.
exploring the possibilities that are available from the various providers, this is certainly not the only way to
Integrating other meeting formats into a virtual meeting
transfer a conference into a virtual meeting.
can be quite challenging, depending not only upon the technical implementation but upon the moderation by the
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| Sept 2020
