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Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements

Accelerate your event scoping and software selection process.

Your organization is considering holding an event online, or has been, but:

  • The organization (both on the business and IT sides) may not have extensive experience hosting events online.
  • It is not immediately clear how your formerly in-person event’s activities translate to a virtual environment.
  • Like the work-from-home transformation, bringing events online instantly expands IT’s role and responsibilities.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

If you don't begin with strategy, you will fit your event to technology, instead of the other way around.

Impact and Result

To determine your requirements:

  • Determine the scope of the event.
  • Narrow down your list of technical requirements.
  • Use Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework to select the right software solution.

Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements Research & Tools

1. Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements Storyboard – Use this storyboard to work through key decision points involved in creating digital events.

This deck walks you through key decision points in creating virtual or hybrid events. Then, begin the process of selecting the right software by putting together the first draft of your requirements for a virtual event software solution.

2. Virtual Events Requirements Tool – Use this tool to begin selecting your requirements for a digital event solution.

The business should review the list of features and select which ones are mandatory and which are nice to have or optional. Add any features not included.


Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements

Accelerate your event scoping and software selection process.

Analyst Perspective

When events go virtual, IT needs to cover its bases.

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed a dramatic digital transformation on the events industry. Though event ticket and registration software, mobile event apps, and onsite audio/visual technology were already important pieces of live events, the total transformation of events into online experiences presented major challenges to organizations whose regular business operations involve at least one annual mid-sized to large event (association meetings, conferences, trade shows, and more).

Many organizations worked to shift to online, or virtual events, in order to maintain business continuity. As time went on, and public gatherings began to restart, a shift to “hybrid” events began to emerge—events that accommodate both in-person and virtual attendance. Regardless of event type, this pivot to using virtual event software, or digital event technology, brings events more closely into IT’s areas of responsibility. If you don't begin with strategy, you risk fitting your event to technology, instead of the other way around.

If virtual and hybrid events are becoming standard forms of delivering content in your organization, use Info-Tech’s material to help define the scope of the event and your requirements, and to support your software selection process.

Photo of Emily Sugerman
Emily Sugerman
Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

The organization (both on the business and IT sides) may not have extensive experience hosting events online.

It is not immediately clear how a formerly in-person event’s activities translate to a virtual environment.

Like the work-from-home transformation, bringing events online expands IT’s role and responsibilities.

Common Obstacles

It is not clear what technological capabilities are needed for the event, which capabilities you already own, and what you may need to purchase.

Though virtual events remove some barriers to attendance (distance, travel), it introduces new complications and considerations for planners.

Hybrid events introduce another level of complexity.

Info-Tech’s Approach

In order to determine your requirements:

Determine the scope of the event.

Narrow down your list of technical requirements.

Use Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework to select the right software solution.

Info-Tech Insight

If you don't begin with strategy, you will fit your event to technology, instead of the other way around.

Your challenge

The solution you have been using for online events does not meet your needs.

Though you do have some tools that support large meetings, it is not clear if you require a larger and more comprehensive virtual event solution. There is a need to determine what type of technology you might need to purchase versus leveraging what you already have.

It is difficult to quickly and practically identify core event requirements and how they translate into technical capabilities.

Maintaining or improving audience engagement is a perpetual challenge for virtual events.

38%
of event professionals consider virtual event technology “a tool for reaching a wider audience as part of a hybrid strategy.”

21%
consider it “a necessary platform for virtual events, which remain my go-to event strategy.”

40%
prioritize “mid-budget all-in-one event tech solution that will prevent remote attendees from feeling like second-class participants.”

Source: Virtual Event Tech Guide, 2022

Common obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations.

Events with networking objectives are not always well served by webinars, which are traditionally more limited in their interactive elements.

Events that include the conducting of organizational/association business (like voting) may have bylaws that make selecting a virtual solution more challenging.

Maintaining attendee engagement is more challenging in a virtual environment.

Prior to the pandemic, your organization may not have been as experienced in putting on fully virtual events, putting more responsibility in your corner as IT. Navigating virtual events can also require technological competencies that your attendee userbase may not universally possess.

Technological limitations and barriers to access can exclude potential attendees just as much as bringing events online can open up attendance to new audiences.

Opportunity: Virtual events can significantly increase an event’s reach

Events held virtually during the pandemic noted significant increases in attendees.

“We had 19,000 registrations from all over the world, almost 50 times the number of people we had expected to host in Amsterdam. . . . Most of this year’s [2020] attendees would not have been able to participate in a physical GrafanaCon in Amsterdam. That was a huge win.” – Raj Dutt, Grafana Labs CEO[5]

Event In-person Online 2022
Microsoft Build 2019: 6,000 attendees 2020: 230,000+ registrants[1] The 2022 conference was also held virtually[3]
Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence A few hundred attendees expected for the original (cancelled) 2020 in-person conference 2020: 30,000 attendees attended the “COVID-19 and AI” virtual conference[2] The 2022 Spring Conference was a hybrid event[4]

[1] Kelly, 2020; [2] Price, 2020; [3] Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 2022; [4] Warren, 2022; [5] Fast Company, 2020

Info-Tech’s methodology for defining virtual/hybrid event requirements

A diagram that shows defining event scope, creating list of requirements, and selecting software.

Event planning phases

Apply project management principles to your virtual/hybrid event planning process.

Online event planning should follow the same established principles as in-person event planning.
Align the event’s concept and objectives with organizational goals.

A diagram of event planning phases
Source: Adapted from Event Management Body of Knowledge, CC BY 4.0

Gather inputs to the planning processes

Acquire as much of this information as possible before you being the planning process.

Budget: Determine your organization’s budget for this event to help decide the scope of the event and the purchasing decisions you make as you plan.

Internal human resources: Identify who in your organization is usually involved in the organization of this event and if they are available to organize this one.

List of communication and collaboration tools: Acquire the list of the existing communication and collaboration tools you are currently licensed for. Ensure you know the following information about each tool:

  • Type of license
  • License limitations (maximum number of users)
  • Internal or external-facing tool (or capable of both)
  • Level of internal training and competency on the tool
Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

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Emily Sugerman

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