To coincide with the launch of our new Hybrid Event services, we thought we’d do ourselves and no doubt everyone else a favour by first explaining, what exactly is a hybrid event.

In a nutshell, a hybrid event is any type of event that is presented to both a face-to-face and an internet-based audience. In practice, it’s possible to turn any sort of conference, workshop, discussion panel or demonstration into a hybrid event by recording and uploading it to the web as a live or pre-recorded video or audio webcast. Additionally, synchronised slides and audio from live presentations can be shared with online audiences by using a webcast, web conference or slideshare service.

Hybrid events often integrate with social media channels or web tools such as Twitter, Facebook, online chat or blogs. These back channels enable both ‘in the room’ and virtual audiences to talk about the presentations and interact with presenters before, during and after the event. Some event planners are taking Twitter feedback one step further by using TwitterWall technology to moderate and share tweets with the venue audience both on-stage and in common areas at the venue. The best of the Twitter moderation technologies also allow you to run sweepstakes and voting as additional bonus activities.

The provision of free WiFi access is becoming the norm at Hybrid events to ensure everyone can contribute to the online conversation, get background information from the web or access event resources such as online programmes.

On bigger budget events, hand-held voting units can also be used to take votes on key questions from the venue-based audience which can then be integrated with voting results from online attendees.

So if you haven’t previously run a hybrid event, why should you consider doing so in future? Here are our top three great benefits from going hybrid.

1) Reach

Firstly, you can increase the reach of your event by including people who may not be able to attend your live event due to time, cost or travel constraints.

2) Longevity

Secondly, you can extend the lifetime of your content by uploading recordings of your event to YouTube or Vimeo, or by uploading slide presentations to websites such as SlideShare. Consider this: a Tweet or a Facebook post has a very short lifespan and usually gets lost in the ether within a couple of hours. However, a video clip that has been well optimized for the Internet, can continue to generate views over a number of years. That’s definitely a long-term brand awareness activity that’s not to be sniffed at.

3) Revenue

And finally, if you’re focused on generating revenue from your event content, then why not provide access to your content on a pay-per-view or permission-only basis either during or after the event.

With all these great benefits it’s no wonder that hybrid events have been predicted by many to become one of the fastest growing trends of 2012.

In response to this growing demand, Icon’s new Hybrid Event Services have been devised to help Event Professionals to deliver any combination of these options at their next event. Interested in finding out more? Then please get in touch and we’ll be happy to advise on the best technologies options for your next event.