Maximizing Hybrid Events: Strategies for Expanding Reach and Quality Production (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hybrid events are offering significant opportunities beyond the pandemic. And if you get the basics right, a small event can suddenly become something massive. Let me explain how. I work as a content producer, media consultant, and lecturer focusing on digital platforms. My clients include public broadcasters, publishers, and conferences. My job is helping them define the next level of streaming on digital platforms. We learned a lot developing setups for pop-up studios and virtual conferences, and it's all in the planning. First things first, delivering a hybrid event isn't rocket science. But doing it well, it requires attention to detail and good levels of planning. What platforms will you be producing for? How do the formats differ, and what does that mean technically? These are the sorts of questions that help you begin to understand what production requirements you will have. I usually recommend recording an event in the highest quality that you can afford when it comes to production quality. That should be, as a rule, at least 4K, if not better. Why? HD is fine for the stream, for the broadcast, and all the monitors and LED walls at the venue. But you need the higher quality for a second purpose. In many cases, hybrid events have a small audience watching the live stream, but a larger audience watching the recording. And you want that in the highest possible quality. There are three additional different target groups that could be your audience for a hybrid event. First, people who wanted to watch the live stream, but didn't have the time to watch it live. They want to watch the recording afterwards as a replay. The second target group, people who attended your event, your hybrid event in the audience, in the real audience, physically, but want to watch it again as the recording. And last but not least, the third target group, perhaps the most significant group, are those who stumble upon the content by chance via social networks. So a hybrid event with, for instance, 200 viewers during the live stream could reach another 1000 viewers in the replay and another 50k on social media if you have the right formats ready for the platforms. And that is one of the most important things to keep in mind. How can you have one live stream in landscape and produce with no further cost the second piece for social media in square and portrait mode? Or how to focus on social media, but not to ruin your physical event? I spent years building rack-based setups for social media productions, but I'm tired of carrying racks around. So I built an OB truck, a broadcast van made for a social media first workflow. But since the TV industry is more and more focusing on social media and digital platforms, the social media creators are also aiming for better quality and for broadcast style productions. So the broadcast van is capable of competing with the big TV trucks ready for sports events, concerts, conferences and TV events. All signals can be looped out to additional monitors to double the workspace or to have the production outside the van and just keeping the van as a pre-configured setup with all the technical stuff inside. As you can see, the setup bears many similarities to classical OB vans, the classical open broadcast van. But here we are focusing on social media first productions. The workflow is designed to stream in different formats like square, landscape and portrait mode to a bunch of platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. What's more, you can use all the event content for your ongoing marketing on all digital platforms with no further costs. Another important consideration is accessibility. With hybrid events, you have now the opportunity to reach people who have not the chance to visit an event physically. So now it's inclusive, everyone can watch your event without any barriers and it's much more sustainable.