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You have read, no doubt about the state of the economy. According to the NY Times article on January 19, 2014, by Patricia Cohen , the Oxfam Study Finds Richest 1% Is Likely to Control Half of Global Wealth by 2016

What does that have to do with this blog? Plenty!! When the Great recession was at its height in 2008, many meetings and events were either canceled or downsized. This had nothing to do with content, but with the economy. Many companies did not want to spend money on conferences, or they wanted to spend a whole lot less. In addition, companies and associations didn’t want to spend the money to send their staff or members to conferences. Possible international attendees couldn’t attend due to time away from their desks as well as rising costs of travel. This is still the case.

Recently we managed event registration for a medical conference. Registration was up by over 20%, but dues to the Ebola crisis, about 10% of those registered had to stay home and tend to the crisis.

What is the solution to all of this? Stream the conference live and on demand (a hybrid event), to enable all constituents to attend.   This will not eat into your attendance, but will increase attendance and your bottom line.

Webcasts will unite your worldwide or nationwide staff or membership. A webcast extends your reach.

With the technology and stability of webcasting having greatly improved, webcasting your conference or special event is important.

Here are 5 tips to help you make your webcast event a success:

1-    Webcasting or hybrid events drive attendance. Your virtual audience will get a taste of the outstanding content that is delivered and will no doubt attend in person the next time if they can.

2-    Engage your virtual audience with text chats, Twitter Chats, etc. You must have a moderator to facilitate this in order to keep inappropriate comments offline and to help seed the conversation if needed. Depending upon the session and the presenter, some sessions could be made interactive

3-    Of course, your content must be worthwhile.

4-    Be sure to consider your face-to-face audience as well as the virtual audience. Be sure that your presenters understand that they will be seen and heard, worldwide via an internet streamed broadcast.

5-    Have a team that understands the virtual meeting component and works on that and interfaces with the webcast technology partner, so the face to face meeting receives full attention of the planning staff.

You , your team and your company or association will be thrilled when you see the results of a well planned and executed hybrid event.

See the following short examples of webcasts that were produced by P&V Enterprises:

PNVWebcasts Highlights

PNVWebcasts Demo

Contact info@pnventerprises.com to set up a no obligation conference call.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Andrew Maxwell January 28, 2015, 2:50 pm

    Webcasts can be difficult to keep an audience’s attention. I like the tip about engaging the audience. As the moderator has no idea what the people on the other end of the webcast are doing, engagement is vital.

    • Pat Ahaesy February 5, 2015, 11:11 am

      Thank you for your comment.