Transformation of business: online events

Yuliia Fedorenko, producer of large-scale MamaPapa Forum Ukraine, who managed to gather 800 people this year in February, denotes that hardly any event agency that tried to bring offline events online managed to preserve the planned scale. She and her colleagues claim that online events gathered in average up to 100 participants. On the one hand, it may be explained by the fact that people are to some extent tired of online format because of forced remote work and studies, on the other hand, the industry was under the pressure of numerous courses that were offered free of charge, as well as a range of events that were also held free of charge. Audience got promptly used to free of charge events and do not want to pay for the participation in the events even with famous speakers.

Svitlana Chaurova, marketing director of business/media bureau ekonomika + outlines that all events held by the company during the quarantine met expectations in terms of feasibility and according to the reviews the event lived up to the expectations of the audience in terms of the quality and the format.

Oleksandr Klimashevskyi, Digital director of ekonomika+ explains: “We managed not only to quickly reorient towards online format and keep the quality level but to engaged the participants to the fullest extent into the communication via chat during the streaming where they are able to ask speakers questions and exchange impressions, tests, votes, presents, speakers can answer the participants’ questions, participants can communicate with the speakers before and after the event, which provides the possibility for the efficient networking during our events. We have cases when the participants agreed on collaboration in the chat.”

The key ingredient in the success cocktail of the online event – presence effect, which according to Oleksandr Klimashevskyi may be achieved due to the high-quality visualization and background music, outstanding top-speakers and first of all interaction with the audience. It is the interaction that distinguishes online event from online streaming.

Yuliia Fedorenko defined one more possibility the event agencies had when the quarantine was imposed: “Chats for the communication between the participants of the online event are not a new tool, but it is more frequently used to organize networking and provide additional value of the event. Online format extended the horizons and possibilities for communication and networking of the event agencies themselves. International business communication clubs went online too and it allowed us to hold several joint events with the partners from other countries.” The expert recommends to choose carefully the location for the event in case of absence of own studio, since beautiful picture on the screen is vital for online event success.

Online format has several technical advantages. For example, if the speaker cannot come to the studio for some reasons, he or she may be smoothly connected to the online event and participants that ask questions may be also shown on the screen. In addition, participants may provide feedback in real-time mode on the value of the knowledge received from the speaker or pass a test the results of which the speaker will receive after the speech and comment on. Svitlana Chaurova says that it is important for the success of both online and offline events to keep in touch with the event’s participants – send extract from the speeches, video-records etc.

“To some extent online event is better in terms of the number of available interaction tools and we are already developing the mechanisms that will allow to implement additional digital tools in the scenarios of our events even after we return to proper offline conferences”, Oleksandr Klimashevskyi summed up.

The following formats of online events became popular:

• interactive conference;

• educational lecture with one speaker;

• panel discussion/ roundtable discussion /brainstorming;

• interview with an prominent person;

• excursion (around the city, factory etc.);

• online tasting (for example tasting of wine delivered beforehand);

• examination of the object during which the audience may ask the presenter to look closer at the object or check the object based on any criterion;

• charity marathon, during which the speaker shares knowledge and asks for donations for some charitable purpose;

• marathon, transformation game, workshop for one or several participants, quiz etc.

Work with the speakers plays especially important role during the online event preparation. The organizer should agree in advance the topic and presentations with the speakers, ideally – listen to the presentations. It is recommended to include information on working cases in the speech, add videos to the presentation as illustration. These aspects are important for offline events too, but the requirements to online events are stricter since it is so much more difficult to keep the attention during such events and dynamics are especially important.

Not for nothing do they say that any crisis is a source of opportunities!