4 mistakes made by organisers of virtual events and how to prevent them

4 mistakes made by organisers of virtual events and how to prevent them

Organ­is­ing vir­tu­al or livestream­ing events has become increas­ing­ly impor­tant in recent years, whether for con­certs, plays or con­fer­ences. Thanks to the progress of tech­nol­o­gy, live broad­cast­ing of an event or a show has become much eas­i­er, but still requires rig­or­ous prepa­ra­tion. Here are the 4 most com­mon mis­takes made by organ­is­ers when prepar­ing their first vir­tu­al event and the solu­tions to pre­vent them.

Sum­ma­ry


Mistake #1: Having eyes bigger than your belly

Many organ­is­ers of vir­tu­al events want to ‘do it all at once’. How­ev­er, what might seem sim­ple at first glance, such as invit­ing sev­er­al speak­ers or super­im­pos­ing graph­ic ele­ments, can’t always be done on a con­ven­tion­al broad­cast­ing plat­form and with­out cer­tain key skills.

The solution: Simplify your first virtual events

Make sure you can get your mes­sage across with the bud­get you have. Keep things as sim­ple as pos­si­ble, and remem­ber: all you real­ly need for suc­cess­ful stream­ing is a lap­top or a phone and an inter­net con­nec­tion. It’s best to start humbly and add extra lay­ers lat­er, such as a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cam­era, for exam­ple.

Mistake #2: Forgetting to test effectively

Mid broad­cast is not the best time to learn the basics of vir­tu­al events. Most broad­cast­ing plat­forms such as Face­book, Insta­gram, Twitch and YouTube allow users to pre­view their feed or car­ry out tests in ‘pri­vate mode’. This is ide­al for mov­ing for­ward with con­fi­dence as you get to see the final result while being out of pub­lic view. Above all, live stream­ing requires a very good inter­net con­nec­tion. This can vary at dif­fer­ent times of the day or even be insuf­fi­cient depend­ing on the ele­ments added to your live feed (speak­ers, visu­als, music, etc.).

The solution: Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Prac­tice as much as pos­si­ble in order to set up the dif­fer­ent sequences of your event and things will fall into place with each rehearsal. The smooth run­ning of major events is not a mat­ter of chance — rehearsals last sev­er­al hours, and some­times even days. Plan at least one rehearsal with all atten­dees, or poten­tial­ly with the same num­ber of peo­ple by ask­ing col­leagues and friends to take on a role. Ask your­self: what are the var­i­ous stages of the event? Will you need to hur­ry through the dif­fer­ent phas­es? Who will take care of which tasks? Leave no room for the uncer­tain­ties of live broad­cast­ing, as far as prac­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble.

Impor­tant: Test your inter­net speed on speedtest.net and make sure it’s suf­fi­cient in terms of the rec­om­men­da­tions for the plat­form you’re using.

Mistake #3: Errors in the choice of channels for broadcasting

Once you’ve rehearsed all the ele­ments of your event and are ready to broad­cast it, you might believe everything’s wrapped up. How­ev­er, you need to think care­ful­ly about where your con­tent is going. Ask your­self the right ques­tions: what are my audience’s favourite broad­cast­ing plat­forms? How are you going to attract audi­ences to this or that chan­nel? Who will be inter­est­ed in your con­tent? Which plat­form best fits the cho­sen for­mat?

The solution: Choose the most effective channel

There’s no point in try­ing to be every­where. It’s bet­ter to choose one or two chan­nels where you’re sure to reach your audi­ence. In addi­tion, some plat­forms spe­cialise in cer­tain areas or for­mats. Twitch spe­cialis­es in games. YouTube and Face­book are more main­stream. Zoom is suit­able for pro­fes­sion­al events. Insta­gram works well for one-on-one dis­cus­sions. And they all have dif­fer­ent ways of offer­ing inter­ac­tions with the audi­ence. It’s up to you to find the bal­ance between your needs and the expec­ta­tions of your audi­ence.

Mistake #4: Preparing your virtual event alone

The more ele­ments, speak­ers or mate­r­i­al you add to your vir­tu­al event, the more like­ly you are to trip up or be faced with unfore­seen cir­cum­stances. Achiev­ing a flaw­less result with graph­ic over­lays, mul­ti­ple guests and attrac­tive decors will prob­a­bly require a large bud­get and sub­stan­tial exper­tise.

The solution: Seek advice from specialists

Spe­cialised ser­vice providers help brands or event cre­ators find the right equip­ment and work smarter in order to design suc­cess­ful vir­tu­al events. Their staff have hun­dreds of events of this type to their cred­it. This is a rare and valu­able expe­ri­ence that you won’t have if you’re just get­ting start­ed in vir­tu­al events. If the cost of a ser­vice is too high for you, ask for sim­ple advice on how to get start­ed. And if you feel there’s poten­tial for devel­op­ment after hav­ing done one or more live events, hire an expert.

You now know the 4 major pit­falls to avoid in order to organ­ise a suc­cess­ful vir­tu­al event. Weezevent offers an online tick­et­ing solu­tion and tick­et reg­is­tra­tion to get you start­ed right now:

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