What About Hub and Spoke?

By S. David Ramirez

The suggestion came as we were planning our 2021 convention. Our team of staff and volunteers are evenly split between San Antonio and Dallas. Given the slower than expected rollout of the COVID vaccine, we had a strong indication that our show would be almost entirely local instead of drawing the statewide attention that helped us reach 20,000 attendees in 2019.

Our Dallas contingent expressed concern about driving the 275 miles to our venue. With this concern in mind, we went through an entire planning process of reimaging our annual culture festival as a multi-location activation. Ultimately, we decided against it, but committing to the thought exercise gave us a new perspective into what it would take to transform our event into a Hub and Spoke.

What is a Hub and Spoke Event?

Hub and spoke is one of several event formats that experts anticipate will gain popularity as the world recovers from the pandemic. The format consists of a central main event, “the hub’, where keynotes and other face-to-face programming take place. There can be any number of smaller “spokes” that are regional face-to-face offshoots of the main event happening simultaneously. All associated events are branded, themed, and marketed as part of the same activation.

Why Hub and Spoke?

We’re not sure how long COVID will remain a part of our lives and industry. Some experts have gone so far as to speculate that we may have seasonal outbreaks of covid, much like we do with our cold and flu seasons. The Hub and Spoke format allows event organizers to replace the mega-conferences of yesteryear with several smaller regional events, reducing the possibility of having attendees spreading sickness across geographies while still providing an event experience.

This format also speaks to consumer confidence. It may be years before tourism fully bounces back. H&S reduces the ask on attendees, who are more likely to participate in a program in their local markets than travel across the country to participate.

Example Hub and Spoke

One of the most widely known Hub and Spoke format events can be seen annually on New Year’s Eve. Various broadcasts will have simultaneous activations in multiple cities, all stemming from a primary production focused in New York for the Ball Drop. Each activation has separate hosts and unique schedules, but the events are co-marketed as part of the same activation. Content like headline performances is shared to spoke locations as well as telecasted to remote audiences. Some elements, like the ball drop, may be recorded and rebroadcast to better suit local time zones.

Six Considerations Before Launching a Hub and Spoke Event.

• Staffing Capacity

The first challenge is always whether you have enough warm bodies to execute the event. Each spoke will need its own technical team, customer-facing team, volunteers, exhibitors, and leadership. Those requirements are exponential as you add additional spokes. While a hub and spoke format may seem exciting, some event organizations may find that established formats with smaller staffing footprints like Roadshows, are more appropriate.

• Attendee Base

If you build it, they will come… right? Spokes should be placed with great intentionality. There should be a great enough distance between the hub and spokes to justify the costs associated with simultaneous activation.

Questions to ask:

• What is the maximum distance attendees will travel to participate in an event?

• What is the minimum distance allowable before the activations start to cannibalize attendance from each other?

• What is the greatest distance at which sharing content or engagement is impeded? (Time zones should play a part in this discussion.)

• Placemaking

A danger of the format is the unequal distribution of placemaking. The Hub should get plenty of love, particularly if the majority of the cornerstone content is coming from that central location. But be sure to share the love will all the spokes, especially if they’re paying the same price for admission.

Make each local activation feel like part of the whole. This starts with basic placemaking practices like signage, swag, and atmospheric branding. Create opportunities for people to have similar experiences by deploying the same (or visually similar) photo ops like step and repeats or branded backdrops. Take it a step further and serve the same food at meals or snack breaks. Include the same swag and conference materials in each attendee, vendor, and speaker kit.

• Venue and Vendors

Perhaps the greatest difficulty of creating a hub and spoke event is wrangling logistics. All venues have their quirks, preferred and exclusive providers, and on-site event teams.

My flagship show splits programming between a convention center and a hotel. As we brainstormed the possibilities, we realized the easiest way to plan the spokes was to explore activating in affiliated hotels. Our sales executive from Hyatt quickly rose as a champion for this exploratory. We did not have a clear picture of the gerrymandering districts and sales organizations that make up their hotels in our state. Without her volunteering to make connections, recommendations, and support collaboration we would not have been able to complete the exercise. Find a champion early and save the headache.

• Technology

Technology for Hub and Spoke should be broken into two main categories. First, consider the technology required in each venue for a standard activation. These are the usual suspects for special events; projection, amplification, display, lighting, etc.

Now consider how you’ll transmit information between the two venues. There are different challenges between displaying synchronous and asynchronous content. Do some things need to be recorded? Does the lag between livestream and spoke audiences mean it isn’t viable for them to participate in Q&A? Do things like time zones, local cultures, and regional weather affect the way content is presented or otherwise engaged with?

• Social Media

Social media has become one of the most powerful tools in an event organizer’s arsenal. It is a way to sell tickets, recruit volunteers, source exhibitors, and build community.

Hub and Spoke events require a sense of unity across activations. Placemaking, programming, and design elements are physical methods of creating this unity. We knew that social unity would need a vital connection between locations and remote participants. I’ve been a long-time fan of social walls. They’re easy to set-up, flexible in size, and don’t require constant monitoring. Pushing social content to the event website, mobile app, and media partners also makes social engagement tools, like social walls, particularly useful since they serve a variety of purposes.

Other social tactics to deploy include a strong hashtag, a local (spoke) hashtag variant if your secondary events will have a significantly unique presence, and the implementation of social livestreaming to entice impulse attendees and future volunteers.

Spend a Day, Do the Planning Exercise

This planning exercise was incredibly useful for our team. While we may still be a year or two away from ever activating a hub and spoke event, we were able to view our conference in a new light. Not only did we walk away with a clearer understanding of the opportunities and challenges of this format. We also walked away with new ideas for programming, socially distanced activities, and how departments will need to operate under a quickly shifting event safety paradigm. We even found some rising stars among the staff who are eager to attempt an off-season hub and spoke experiment.

Take the time. Spend the day. You may learn something new about your event.

S. David Ramirez is a digital marketer and events manager at TINT, the world’s most trusted platform for adding authenticity to your digital media. He is the Executive Director of San Japan, an annual convention that brings 20,000 people to downtown San Antonio. David presents and facilitates workshops worldwide on topics like digital marketing, social media, and user-generated content. Mostly, he’s a nerd. Talk to him about movies or video games.