Tuesday 14 May 2013

Scheduling Your Hybrid Event Success


The timing and scheduling of your event is always an important consideration when planning any event but producing a hybrid event makes those considerations even more crucial to your success.

If one of your objectives of your hybrid event is to connect people in different locations in the same country then the timing and scheduling choices may not be too much of an issue. Having said that, with countries that are vast in size e.g. the USA/Russia then there are still factors you will need to address.

Let’s take as our example, the USA where there are different time zones and where people on the East Coast (New York) will be awake and working, hours before the folks in Los Angeles (West Coast) are even thinking of having breakfast.  Deciding where to schedule your speakers to provide the best experience for your audiences provides your first set of decisions in your programme planning.

And if your hybrid event is going to cover different countries across various parts of the globe then the issue of programme planning has just become that much more complex.

Yes, it is more complex but ultimately you will make your decision(s) according to the objectives of the event. In the end, every decision you make as an event planner always returns the basic question of the event objectives.

Understanding who your audiences (onsite and online) are and where they will be in the world to listen and participate will start to lead you to making those decisions on the scheduling of your programme.

If your hybrid event is being driven from the UK to a largely European audience then the time challenge is really not that big an issue as contrasted to perhaps having an event from Australia involving remote speakers and audience from the UK (as usually there is a 12 hour difference between these two areas). You can of course with some careful planning produce a very successful hybrid event between the UK and Australia if that is your goal.

Scheduling will always remain a crucial factor in the success of your hybrid event and keeping to time is more important than ever especially as you have two audiences to consider.

Related Posts and Resources

Hybrid Event Centre 

Hybrid Event Planning on Planet Planit 

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