A storyteller who grows products, traveller and marketer of products with focus on the digital and analog gap bridging.

Hybrid events are no longer the future of events they are the present. They are already here. And they are going to be the backbone of the event industry. Period.

Hybrid events bring the best of both worlds. The intimacy of in-person meetings of physical events with the scale and flexibility of virtual events that help in serving all the different purposes and benefits to you and your audience.

With this article, I aim to share 7 potent tips to host a successful hybrid event that will make your audience coming back for more.

Tip 1 - Precise Planning
As event planners and professionals, the first and the most important step is to plan precisely and take all the facets of your events into consideration. To plan effectively means to consider and factor-in every possible aspect and component of a hybrid event.

Taking into consideration the experience of other hybrid events, start planning your own event -set specific goals and find the ways to achieve them, plan technological resources and marketing strategies. The distinctiveness of hybrid events lies in the necessity of careful planning of both physical and virtual events, and how to run them simultaneously. Once your plan is completely ready the next step is to start looking for a suitable venue.

Tip 2 - Find A Suitable Venue
When you do hybrid events, you need one venue for in-person event capabilities. Your attendees will come to the venue and attend the event. You also require to engage them and your speakers too. A platform that is designed to de-liver real engagement and best-in-class interactions will be ideal.

Your need analysis has to be accurate. The venue for your hybrid events should be scalable enough to accommodate your in-person attendees' requirement so that you can use the budget effectively. Depending on this you should start planning other arrangements too.

Tip 3 - Prepare For Your Participants
To properly prepare for your participants, you should first know how many participants will attend physically and virtually. Even if you don't know the exact number, it is better to have arough estimate than nothing at all.

To further prepare for your online audience, design your event set up with your online audience in mind. Think about their perspective and how they will view the event online. The event should look exciting to give the online audience a feeling of being at the actual event. On how to format your live stream screen and picture settings.

Tip 4 - Preparing All The Technical Capabilities
An excellent example of a hybrid event includes technical support and equipment suitable for a live event as well as virtual event. Essentially, you will require the best of both. Therefore, you will have to devote time and energy to ensure all the facets of your hybrid event satisfy your audience.

One of the greatest advantages of hybrid events are their long-term positive outcomes. For instance, a common practice is to provide the audience with the downloadable materials when the event is finished

Consider the following criteria while setting up:
· A high speed streaming facility.
· Good lighting and audio capability at the venue for the live event and live streaming.
· Right equipment to host a hybrid event (microphones, HD cameras, tripods, video transcoders, and other essentials).
· An all-in-one hybrid event platform which can handle everything from online ticketing to your event analytics.

Tip 5 - Choose A Perfect Platform
Your hybrid event plan might always look good on paper with elaborate planning and detailing. However, if you want to execute your hybrid event plan with optimal quality and smooth flow, you need to make the right decision in choosing the best suitable platform for your hybrid events.

The platform needs to address both your offline and online requirements so that you can give your attendees a seamless experience. Things like event check in, attendee engagement, ticketing/registration, event streaming, analytics etc are the basics that need to be covered by the platform.

Tip 6 - Train The Staff
If you want to produce a more pleasing experience for your audience at the venue and online, you will need to train your team on aspects like:

· Motivating your attendees to actively participate and engage.
· Letting your attendees interact with your speakers ­ at the venue and online.
· Engagement and networking opportunities and initiatives you would want to provide your attendees with.
· Making sure that online attendees are interacting and engaging with those attendees who are physically present at the event venue.
· Facilitating exhibitors and speakers to connect with attendees by using polls, event feed hubs, contests, Q&A. etc.

Tip 7. Ensure Attendee Participation And Engagement
Audience engagement is perhaps the most important factor to execute well during a hybridevent. As an event planner, engaging the participation and attention of online attendees should be a priority.

It is easy for online attendees to drift away from an online event with so many distractions at home or on their mobile devices. Keeping them engaged and invested in the event with regular polls, contests, and Q&As need to be strategized. Also, you need to encourage your attendees to interact with the speaker, exhibitors, sponsors, or presenter.

Tip 8. Generate Post-Event Content
One of the greatest advantages of hybrid events are their long-term positive outcomes. For instance, a common practice is to provide the audience with the downloadable materials when the event is finished. Offering the recorded content on demand will create an additional long-lasting source of revenue for your business. Downloadable materials like a list of key insights can work as promotion materials furthermore.

To sum it up, don't forget that hybrid events are a mix of two formats and treat the on-site and remote attendees equally. Engaging your attendees while giving them a seamless experience should be your first priority.