Ep. 103 | Why Hybrid Events Are Here to Stay

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Pixilated Podcast. I'm Patrick Rife. and I'm Alex McGlynn and today in Episode 103. We'r going to talk about why hybri events are here to stay fo ever

Ever never.

Yeah, so what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, hybrid events. They are, I think they're here to say, for a very long time, at least 12 to 24 months, if not forever. And there's a couple of different reasons. So the most kind of a Top of Mind reason is the lingering health concerns that are gonna exist for a while. I don't think that the society in general, it's just going to get over there being a pandemic, as soon as we have a vaccine. So my guess is my assumption is, I think it's a safe one is that there's going to be a large segment of the population that won't feel comfortable going to in person events for an extended period of time. And those people are going to be very grateful to you if you're hosting a hybrid event that they can attend virtually, and maybe won't go if it is in person only. So you know, as it's not a shock to people anxiety is higher than it's ever been before. People's phobias are more controlled than they've ever been before. You need to make sure that you are aligning yourself with where the sidles light, Geist is, and again, giving people options.

Yeah, totally giving people options. So number two is, budgets have gotten tighter, obviously, there's a lot of markets that didn't get hit by COVID. But there are a lot that really did. And everyone's you know, like, all financial projections in a huge, you know, part of the global economy have been firming completely for the loop, and its reverberations are, you know, they're, they're just now starting to build, like, we're gonna, we're gonna be feeling the impact of this for for the rest of the decade. And because of that, it's it's severely impacting the bottom line and how people are approaching things. So budgets are getting tighter, you know, like, the thirst for people traveling across the country may not be there, but like, the thirst for the CFO underwriting, you know, sending 40 guys to San Francisco to go to the Salesforce conference, you know, it may not be there for a while. So learning how to operate these events is going to be critical, I think the other thing that's going to happen is people are are figuring it out, like hybrid events are happening, and they're getting really good. And what's going to happen is as they get good, you know, like in another 60 days, 90 days, we're gonna have a much better idea for how people are managing, figuring out ROI for each of the people. And I think that what we're gonna find is that the ROI is going to be, it's going to be a lot higher for virtual attendees, and it's going to be a lot easier to get them through the sales funnel than it is for in real life attendees. And for that reason, I think that just the focus is gonna is going to shift a bit, and there's going to be a lot of, of bet your bottom dollar, of why hybrid events are a really good solution. So I think that like, the budgets are being dictated in two ways. One, it's what practically where they are right now, I think that the data is gonna is going to be the thing that keeps them here in the long run.

Yeah, also, budgets are tighter on both sides. I mean, your clients aren't going to be willing to spend as lavishly as they have in the past, and your attendees aren't going to be willing to draw huge amounts of money on hotel, food, travel, and your conference ticket, there's a whole lot of other things are paying for that than just going like just to attending the conference. But actually, this brings us to the next book, a good point, that is true for most things in life at this point, the rise of remote, whatever, whether it's remote meetings, or remote work, or some people remote relationships, remote consulting, people are getting really used to the idea of tuning into things via laptop and participating via screen shares of or webcam shares of some sort. And people are going to continue to be come more and more comfortable with it as it gets more and more normal. I mean, even think about yourself, the probably the first few zoom calls you had. After this all started back in March, we're probably a little awkward and probably a little bit meandering can be a little weird. But now I mean, for most people, it's, you know, they they can do it like the back of their hand. Or, like the back of your hand. It's easy to navigate through people are getting used to it, and it's going to just continue to get more and more common and commonplace. So the idea that there's not an audience out there that's willing to tune in remotely just isn't accurate and it's going to continue to get disproven. disproven, yeah, there's gonna be a larger audience that's willing to attend your conferences, virtually the maybe ever before.

Yeah. Which brings us to the next point, which I think is the definitive number one reason why hybrid is here to stay, which is that your total addressable market is massive, your audience is so much larger than it used to be all of a sudden, you don't need to be in Des Moines to get people to attend your thing. You can be anywhere in the world and attend this hybrid event that the home base is in demine. But I'm in South Paulo and everything's cool. I think that when it comes to the fundamental events, it's going to be rich, like a really rich ecosystem. We already live in a business world that thirst for globalism, like yes, there is a lot of insidious negative stuff about globalism, but also there's billions of people all over the planet that are just dying to check out other places and to like, connect with people in other places. And that's just like, that is technology meeting human desire. And like, that's a very interesting thing. So I think that like, it's going to start out innocently like that, I think that what's going to happen is, all of these organizations, by being able to open up to global attendees, they're going to have a profound volume of ideas and people flowing into their networks that are going to create a profound volume of synergies that naturally happen from growing your ecosystem growing your place. And I think that is going to end up producing a tranche of innovations. In every kind of facet of life that is going to really end up being this thing's I think, it's like you can't put the worms back in the can. Right. And and once we, once we see this ability for a greater global connectivity around our interests, right, whether it's pet shelters, or whether it's eradicating, you know, like Ebola, or whether like, whatever it's about, right, like, once those connections start to happen, like you're not going to break them down. They're, they're stronger than you. And they will be the things that actually power you through and build bridges to places that you never could have expected.

Yeah, absolutely. And so this for like this next point, I mean, it's gonna have a little bit basic. But I also think it's a really important factor. And why hybrid events are here to say, I typically put, they're just more convenient. People like options, and people don't like being feeling like they're forced to fly halfway across the country for a business opportunity or to attend, you know, a webinar or sorry, a, like a workshop or something that they want to be a part of. And this kind of goes hand in hand with a lot of the other things we've talked about, like the rise of remote, there being a brighter, a broader audience there being tighter budgets, all of these things are kind of converging to create a situation where if you are bound and determined to have an in person conference, we're probably going to have a pretty significant drop off and attendees. Because people don't want to travel like they used to, I mean, even or they don't want to travel for conferences, they want to travel for leisure and pleasure because they haven't been able to for six months. And people don't have the funds to produce all of the things that are involved with attending a conference that's halfway around the world. And audiences in Europe can't fly to America easily. And also, again, people have just kind of realized that you don't need to be at a place in person to get something out of it. That's why there's so many companies that are going fully remote with their workforces, they've kind of come to realization that having every single person in the same building wasn't actually necessary. You know, it's not the 1950s anymore, there are 1000 different ways to communicate digitally. And that works for some people, and some people are no longer going to be willing to inconvenience themselves for a learning opportunity. So if your conferences and doing it, they can probably find another one that is and they're going to take that route. Other people are gonna want to keep going in, in person events, they like the camaraderie they like the networking, but a lot of folks are gonna want to attend virtually. And if you can offer them that route, they'll probably take it.

Yep. So last point on our list is I already actually like went whole hog on this point earlier. So we'll keep it brief, but higher ROI full like I did. But um, I mean, like the return on your investment, you know, say yes to doing your hybrid event, and then keep track of all the data and then look at it afterwards and write to me if it's wrong, but I bet that I'm going to be right in saying that your ROI goes through the roof. I think that in terms of informing your, your acquisition, strategies, marketing, sales, whatever that whatever you however you break them down, I think that you're going to end up producing a funnel that is easier to understand, it's easier to assign a, an approximate dollar amount to what each one of those leads looks like. It's just gonna it's gonna allow you to have That much more of a of a of a digital sales funnel, because it's taking a lot of the guesswork out of it. So your conversions are going to get tighter, your numbers, your understanding of the process is all going to is going to get becoming exceedingly clear. And then from there, you kind of hit, hit rocket fuel with it. So

on the other side try is also going to get higher for your attendees. If I as a sales manager can send one person to the conference, or have five people attend the hybrid conference and it costs the same amount of money either way, I'm going to go with having five of my employees attend over virtual and hopefully get more out of it and get more bang for our buck. So again, there's also higher ROI on the other side as well. It's important Keep in mind,

Yep, sure. Okay, so that's it. That's the end of Episode 103 why hybrid events are here to stay. Before you go. If you could please remember to rate review and subscribe. Your reviews help us find more listeners for our podcast and your subscription ensures you're notified each day when we publish a new episode. So until tomorrow, I'm Patrick Rife.

And I'm Alex McGlynn

Peace