Many organisations are now using hybrid event management as an opportunity to enable an online and in-person audience to interact with the event.

At BA Events, we have clients that come to us with a venue already in mind, or booked and others who ask us to source an appropriate venue for their hybrid event.

So what are the key things you want to consider when booking a venue for your hybrid event?

Internet

This should be right at the top of your agenda when discussing the event with your prospective venue. If there is no internet at your venue that is going to make the event difficult to put together.

Ideally you want your venue to provide you a fast hard wired internet connection which you can use to stream your event. You also want to ensure there is an open, easily accessible guest WIFI that can be used by your event attendees.

Flexible delegate numbers

The first question all venues will ask you is the number of attendees you’re expecting to attend your event. This will enable them to understand the best space for your event.

You want to ensure that before you sign the contract, you have some flexibility in your delegate numbers; so say you are expecting 100 to attend your event, see if you can sign the contract for 80 delegates but with a provision for 120 attendees to join on the day. This way you are ensuring you do not pay for unnecessary food and drink.

Space

You are probably quite familiar with booking event spaces for live events with all attendees in the room. However, if you’re planning a hybrid event you will want to consider space for the tech desk and exploring if the cameras can be raised to be in line with the stage.

Audio visual

You will need to tell the venue what your audio and visual requirements are for the event. This will dependant on what your planning on doing during your event.

Do you have any speakers joining remotely?

Do you want live questions to come up on the screen?

The best thing to do is explain to the AV company what your requirements are and they will be able to advise the best solution. The one thing you will certainly need though, is an audio output feed so that everyone watching online can hear what is going on in the room.

Set-up time

The final thing to consider is set-up time. You need plenty time to get to the venue, test the internet is working, get your kit set-up and have a coffee before your attendees arriving. It is really important to factor this into account when deciding your event starting time as venues will often charge you more to set-up and pack-down outside of the hours agreed in your room hire.

If you need any help with event management or hybrid events, feel free to get in touch.