A Hybrid Event in Action

Event Bytes

Robert Swanwick

On Feb. 6, a global community of online event professionals met for the first time face-to-face. People traveled from as far away as Switzerland to meet for a day in New York City and discuss social media for events. Seventy members of the #eventprofs Twitter group, which formed just one year ago and already boasts hundreds of committed members, made the trip and pitched in as organizers, presenters and sponsors. It was a who’s who of social media event experts.

EventCamp10 was billed as the first social media-events unconference. Top-voted sessions on-site were added to the pre-planned schedule.

The conference goals included great content, but also a rare opportunity to experiment with features they wished were in place at other conferences—an event lab of sorts.  


The sessions were extremely collaborative. Only three were PowerPoint-driven talks. The rest were panels, fishbowls or some other form of interactive session. Thanks to the many hybrid social media features, in-person attendees were not the only ones interacting:
  1. Attendees collaborated in the weeks leading up to the event as part of an active online forum (via Conference 2.0).
  2. Sessions in the main room were simulcast on the Internet.
  3. Simulcast video stream merged with an #ec10 Twitter chat using twebevent.
  4. In-person and online attendees used Twitter to create a backchannel for every session that was vibrant and educational. The conference hashtag was the No. 1 trending topic in NYC that day.
  5. Front-of-room video monitors allowed speakers/panelists to see what was being tweeted and work questions/comments into the sessions.
  6. Every session had an in-person representative to bring online attendee questions into the discussions.
  7. While only the main room streamed live, every room was video recorded. All the videos are posted to an online channel for viewing at any time.  
EventCamp10 charged just US$75 for an in-person pass, and the online pass was free. Even with such a limited budget, the event pushed the hybrid envelope. Yet, even with so many things that went right, there were a few lessons learned re: the hybrid element.
  1. Check and double-check your bandwidth. Get a line dedicated to your video streaming whenever possible.
  2. If you are filming, make sure you have great lighting.   
For information about the organizing process, contact @MizCity or @JessicaLevin on Twitter. The hybrid portion of the event was organized by @mmcallen. I served on the Hybrid Events panel with @psalinger and @MichaelMcCurry. 

Become part of the #eventprofs community yourself by pointing your browser to Tweetchat every Tuesday at 9 p.m. and Thursday at noon (EST). Maybe I’ll see you at the next EventCamp.


ROBERT SWANWICK is the CEO of Speaker Interactive, and his past clients include Aflac, British Telecom, ExxonMobil, Marriott, Metlife, Renault and Westinghouse. Contact him via Twitter @SpkrInteractive or via e-mail at rswanwick@speakerinteractive.com.