Hybrid events provide the best of two worlds in a single event, and in many cases, they can drive engagement and extend your reach. If you’re planning your first hybrid event, you’ll need to be aware of some of the biggest challenges you might face – and how to address them. Here’s what you need to know. 

The Cost, Complexity, and Risk Must be Managed

Roughly half of all organizations utilize more than a single platform for their internal webinars. If this sounds familiar, then moving to a single platform that can handle your meeting, webinar, and event needs can significantly cut costs. It’s important to ensure that the platform you choose has the tools and interface required to handle all of your needs, and if it offers a flexible pricing structure that scales with your company’s growth, that’s even better. 


Furthermore, your chosen event management platform should integrate with your content delivery network seamlessly, and you’ll want to make sure that it gives you access to all the features you need: analytics, reporting, live monitoring, and more. Of course, its performance reliability is another factor; ensuring that your event is broadcasted uninterrupted and that all features work as intended will reduce risk a great deal. 

You Must Provide a Memorable Event Experience

The success of your hybrid event depends almost entirely on audience engagement. After all, if your audience isn’t actively listening or interacting, then your event isn’t likely to be memorable. Utilizing a hybrid event platform that provides you with live metrics for engagement is critical, and along with other analytics features, it can help you determine if an issue with engagement stems from the content itself or a technical issue. This way, you can take action in real time to correct it. When it comes to putting together a memorable experience, the team at Metrigy Research considers five features absolutely essential:

  • Excellent presentation features that allow you to adjust the way the content is being presented.
  • Collaboration capabilities for allowing event managers to communicate with one another based on the real-time event data in front of them. 
  • Audience engagement features that allow speakers, presenters, and the audience to interact with one another. Moderated question and answer sessions, polls, and other features can keep your audience interested. 
  • Large audience capabilities allowing you to support massive numbers of attendees without sacrificing network performance. You might even consider creating smaller sessions within the larger event to interact with the audience even further. 
  • Seamless integration with other applications that your business might use, such as CMR technology, social media and even marketing automation. 

Keeping Attendees Engaged Continuously can be a Challenge

Finally, in today’s online climate, it’s important to make sure that your event focuses on the attendees rather than the company itself. If you’re looking for answers to this challenge, one of the first places you should start is with examining your current tools and platforms. Again, a single unified platform that provides a wealth of information allows event planners the opportunity to access detailed information about the people in attendance, thereby giving them the tools they need to interact with and engage with the attendees. You might even consider choosing features that allow the attendees to network with one another both inside and outside of your events. 

The three biggest challenges when it comes to hybrid events are cost, complexity, and risk management; providing a memorable experience; and keeping your attendees engaged. Your hybrid event platform should provide you with all the tools you need to handle these concerns, all while collecting data that you can use to improve the attendees’ overall experiences.