Virtual Event Management

In a world where attention is fleeting and virtual fatigue is real, how can you successfully host online events? Here are 9 essentials to keep in mind: 1. Start with a Compelling Opening Your opening should grab attention, set the tone, build anticipation and give people a reason to stay. 2. Make Eye Contact Look directly into the camera to create a sense of connection. If you're using a teleprompter or script, keep it at eye level to maintain that engagement. 3. Mind Your Facial Expression People are paying close attention to your face. They can see when you’re smiling, or when you appear bored, upset, or frustrated. Be conscious of your expression. 4. Manage Your Energy Your energy drives the entire experience. If you seem disengaged or flat, your audience will tune out. 5. Build Emotional Connections Use personal stories, relatable examples, and analogies. These human elements help your message resonate on a deeper level. 6. Engage the Audience Make your audience part of the experience. Use polls, Q&A, or chat prompts to keep them actively involved. 7. Be Clear and Concise Attention spans online are shorter. Get to the point quickly, and use clear language. 8. Use Visual Aids and Multimedia Use images, short videos, graphics, and animations that support your message. However, don’t overload your slides with text. 9. Check Your Tech Setup Poor lighting, audio, camera quality, or an unstable internet connection can lead to frustration and reduced participation. Test in advance. Hope this helps. I’m Temi Badru, a professional event MC for physical, virtual, and hybrid events. I also train individuals and teams in public speaking and effective communication. #temibadru #voicesandfaces #eventhost #mc #moderator #speaker #events

Event Management Platform Review 🧐 : Goldcast.io vs. SplashThat As event marketers, choosing the right platform can make or break your event. While there are MANY options, two stand out that I’ve become a "subject matter expert" on… mostly because I've used them so much! Throughout my career, I’ve worked extensively with Splash (SplashThat.com) - onboarding Splash three times at previous roles. More recently, I’ve become well-versed in Goldcast and am an active member of their events community (shoutout to the San Francisco Chapter!). I lean toward Splash for in-person events and Goldcast for virtual ones, but I wanted to give a well-rounded, agnostic review since both have products for either side of the house. (P.S. Kudos to Cvent for acquiring Splash - but please, for the love of God, DO NOT mess up this platform! 😉) Goldcast.io 💛 PROS ✅ Smooth, high-quality virtual/hybrid event experiences - fantastic for webinars ✅ Strong CRM integrations (HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce) for automated lead tracking ✅ User-friendly interface - no advanced tech team needed ✅ Sleek branding options for professional-looking events ✅ Stellar customer support & event services, especially for large virtual conferences (Apollo’s 20K attendee “Olympus” was hosted on Goldcast!) ✅ A REALLY badass community - The Event Marketers Club (highly recommend joining!) CONS ❌ Limited customization of event pages compared to competitors ❌ No badge printing, except via an expensive 3rd party vendor that's "loosely" integrated ❌ In-person product still needs work (e.g., no attendee check-in past 4 hours post-event, awkward 24-hour auto follow-up email timing) ❌ Email template setup is confusing— only ONE sender email can be linked across all events SplashThat 💦 PROS ✅ Excellent for in-person events - beautiful, on-brand event pages with customizable templates. ✅ Flexible email & comms tools - branded invitations, reminders, post-event follow-ups ✅ Intuitive design & branding tools - sharp-looking events with easy cloning ✅ Easy embed forms for corporate website pages ✅ Robust guest management - RSVP tracking, waitlists, segmentation, seamless check-ins ✅ Built-in app attendee check-in, Slack integration for registrants, & "Brothers" printer integration for onsite badges CONS ❌ Virtual/hybrid features are still limited in terms of customization. ❌ Customer support is tiered - faster response times cost extra, and Zoom calls aren’t an option ❌ Virtual event services team operates more like IT support - not always event-savvy ❌ Integration issues to CSM like SFDC/Marketo Both platforms bring unique strengths: Goldcast is my pick for hybrid/virtual, while Splash remains the go-to for in-person (as long as Cvent keeps the magic alive!). (P.S. Not sharing pricing - talk to their teams! It varies based on company size and needs.) What platforms are you using for your events? Let me know in the comments! #EventMarketing #EventTech #Goldcast #SplashThat #FieldMarketing

"I know I can technically do this... but I don't sleep the whole month before the event because I'm terrified of something going wrong. I don't know how it all works. I'm afraid to click the wrong button. I'm not a producer." And that, in a nutshell, is what Luke and I hear almost every day from folks in corporations who have been tasked with running town halls, quarterly updates, or other internal events. Let's face it - starting a Teams or Zoom meeting is not hard. One click and you're live. But there's a gigantic chasm between starting a Zoom meeting and producing a town hall that leaves everyone at your company feeling fired up, ready to crash-tackle that quarterly goal to the ground. Often, companies will try to run their own internal events via their existing IT teams. The problem is that IT folks are fantastic at IT things, not event production. There's a huge difference between knowing how to plug in a microphone and how to make sure it makes the CEO sound like the definitive leader the company needs them to be. Here's something else to consider. Your staff can tell when your event is well produced. And if it's not? Your event will be the talk of the water cooler for weeks to come. Your staff will resent having an hour of their life wasted. Your staff will laugh about how the CEO sounded like they were in a remote cave once inhabited by Rip Van Winkle. Some staff might quit. Everyone has watched a virtual event where there were tech issues. You can't help but feel sorry for the presenter. Are you sure you want your attendees to associate the feeling of helplessness with your CEO? Because that's what will happen if your internal event ISN'T well-produced by professionals. But that's feelings. Let's talk numbers. We were quoting a hybrid town hall for a prospect. They had a few locations across Canada where there would be watch parties, and then at their headquarters there would be an audience of a few hundred people. In all, over 5,000 people were scheduled to attend... plus the entire C-suite. We looked up their executive compensation package. In cash alone, their C-suite takes home around $20 million. Convert that to an hourly rate, and you get an average around $6,850/hr. Their staff, averaging $25/hr each, cost $125,000 to attend. This prospect was going to spend $131,850 on salaries for this single hour show. That's not including time the C-suite spent in rehearsals and prep. That's just the single hour for the town hall. Then it hit me - we're not selling event production. We're selling sleeping pills. We're selling the warm, fuzzy feeling that the event is going to be done right, so everyone in the company can rally around leadership and accomplish their collective mission. That figure suddenly made our quoted cost of $35,000, which included rehearsals, interpreters, recordings, multiple high-end cameras, and redundant backups look like a bargain to guarantee an event that's memorable for the right reasons.

The digital boardroom is often a thicket of sensory noise. We invite people to gather in virtual spaces, but we forget to prepare the soil. We expect a harvest of ideas without considering the environment. I have seen a lack of structure cause brilliant minds to wither. If your meeting requires tracking moving faces, reading a scrolling chat, and watching a dense slide deck all at once, you are not hosting a meeting. You are creating a sensory storm. This is where "Zoom Fatigue" takes root. It is the biological exhaustion of the neurodivergent brain attempting to filter chaos. When the trellis is broken, the vine collapses. Below is The Virtual Inclusion Audit (Part 3). Here are my 11 ways to optimize your virtual classroom, boardroom, or gameroom. Over the last five years I have ran over 100 virtual training events and my TTRPG group just hit our 51st online session. I wish I would've been using these at the beginning. These field-tested shifts reduce friction between your ideas and the nervous systems receiving them. 11 Ways to Cultivate Accessible Virtual Spaces The Pre-Meeting Map ❌ Barrier: Surprise topics exclude those who need time to regulate. ✅ Fix: Send a plain-text agenda 24 hours early. This allows for pre-processing. The Camera Choice ❌ Barrier: Mandatory "Cameras On" causes hyper-vigilance. ✅ Fix: Make cameras optional. This saves energy for processing content. The Chat Discipline ❌ Barrier: Fast-moving chat boxes cause data loss for Dyslexic readers. ✅ Fix: Read chat aloud. This creates a unified audio anchor for the group. The Visual Anchor ❌ Barrier: Unexplained visuals exclude those with visual differences. ✅ Fix: Narrate the slide layout. This builds a shared mental map. The Transition Signal ❌ Barrier: Rapid topic jumps leave some stuck on the previous point. ✅ Fix: Use explicit verbal cues. This resets focus and prevents drift. The Processing Pause ❌ Barrier: Constant talking blocks information storage. ✅ Fix: Schedule "silent minutes." This enables deeper synthesis. The Sensory Buffer ❌ Barrier: Background noise creates Auditory Overload. ✅ Fix: Strict "mute" rule. This protects the primary signal. The Recorded Legacy ❌ Barrier: "Live-only" sessions exclude those with Brain Fog. ✅ Fix: Provide a searchable transcript. This creates a permanent resource. The Question Queue ❌ Barrier: Shouted Q&A rewards the loudest voices. ✅ Fix: A hand-raise system. This ensures the best ideas surface. The Caption Default ❌ Barrier: Asking for captions creates a "disclosure burden." ✅ Fix: Enable captions by default. This aids universal comprehension. The Collaborative Canvas ❌ Barrier: Verbal-only modes ignore those who process through writing. ✅ Fix: Use shared docs. This captures a diverse range of perspectives. The Verdict: A quiet garden grows best. Stop over-stimulating your team and start pacing. #InclusiveEducation #VirtualLearning #Neurodiversity #Leadership #Accessibility

What if you approached every event problem with the same urgency you give to attendee or client emergencies? When a VIP is unhappy, you drop everything. When the keynote's mic fails, you sprint. When registration crashes, all hands on deck. But when it comes to the important but not urgent problems eating 60% of your week? "That's just how events work." I've watched event teams become firefighting heroes while their foundational systems burn slowly in the background. Here's what changes when you attack operational problems like attendee crises: The "500 Submissions" Emergency You wouldn't make attendees wait 8 weeks for answers. So why accept 8 weeks for agenda creation? AI tools like Sessionboard pre-screening can help cut this to 2 weeks. Treat slow processes like the registration-killers they are. The "Stakeholder Update" Crisis If attendees needed updates, you'd never manually write 10 versions. You'd find a solution immediately. AI generates stakeholder-specific updates in seconds if you have a knowledge base for your event that it can reference. Same urgency, different problem. The "Missing ROI Data" Fire When sponsors ask about impact, "great energy" doesn't cut it. AI quantifies qualitative sentiment from thousands of attendee interactions instantly. Treat vague metrics like the budget-killers they are. The "Dead Content" Disaster One keynote dying after the event? That's value cremation. With tools like SprintClip (by Bradley Richardson), AI transforms one talk into 30 pieces of content. Attack content waste like you'd attack an empty keynote room. The "Random Networking" Failure You'd never let attendees eat bad food. So why let them have bad connections? I'm seeing AI matchmaking help increase meeting relevance rates, and there's a massive opportunity for virtual event networking using AI. The "Institutional Amnesia" Problem Losing event knowledge when someone leaves? That's a crisis waiting to happen. AI transcription should be capturing every lesson, vendor note, and attendee preference. Treat knowledge loss like venue loss. The truth is, you're brilliant at solving attendee problems because you treat them as emergencies. Your operational problems persist because you've accepted them as "part of the job." But what if they're not? What if every hour spent on repetitive updates is an hour stolen from strategic thinking? What if every week waiting for agenda approval is a week of lost registrations? What if every manual task is an emergency - just a slow-burning one? In events, it's easy to work 100+ hours in a week and feel like you're still just swimming upstream. To win, it's about treating your own time with the same respect you give your attendees' experience. The question is both "How can AI help?" and "Why are we still tolerating problems we'd never let attendees face?"

I've attended 6 webinars/virtual events in the last 2 weeks. These have been hosted by very small teams/early-stage startups to billion $ companies whose brand names are synonymous with B2B SaaS. A few things I see across these events that are problematic: - Not enough context was given before the event - beyond the title and speakers, I don't know what to expect from a flow of the session perspective. - I have the event on my calendar but the pre-event reminder email frequency is super low. My recommendation is to use the 7-1-4-1 approach. 7 days out, 1 day out, 4 hours out and 1 hour out. Build excitement and drop hints on discussion points, value to the audience and who is attending in these emails. - Speaker and host energy - this is a big one. If the people on stage aren't excited about being there, your audience isn't going to be either. One Slack DM, one WhatsApp notification or an email and you've lost their attention. You need to think of your event as a captivating show on your favourite OTT. They need to be gripped as a result of your energy and the value you are bringing to the event. - Engage outside of the stage - Whether it's summarizing points from the stage to replying to chat or sharing resources in real-time. The chat better be active AF. - Always start with housekeeping - Run through the agenda and flow, and let people know about the assets they can expect, and what will they be able to learn and apply after. Getting them there IS NOT ENOUGH! - Post-event follow-up - every single event host sent out a follow-up email but only with the recording link. You need to share key takeaways, the assets and resources shared during the event and give them something they can engage with further. One and done is not going to drive your results here. What did you think of these observations? Is there something else you feel virtual events for marketers should have? Let me know in the chat. This is a topic close to my heart! LFG! #virtualevents #webinars #marketing

What's the secret to seamless virtual events? A Run-of-Show! Virtual events are like live performances—they require precision, timing, and teamwork to shine. Yet, one critical tool is often overlooked: the Run of Show. Think of it as your event’s blueprint, ensuring everyone involved knows what’s happening and when. From transitions to timing, a well-crafted Run of Show keeps your event on track and stress-free. Here’s what a solid Run of Show includes: ✅ Segment breakdowns: Every element of your event, from the welcome to the wrap-up. ✅ Roles and responsibilities: Who’s doing what and when. ✅ Tech checks: Built-in time to address potential issues. ✅ Time cues: Specific durations for each segment to avoid overruns. ✅ Contingency plans: What happens if something doesn’t go as planned. By investing time in building a Run of Show, you create an experience that feels effortless to your audience—even if you’re managing multiple moving parts behind the scenes. I use a Run of Show for every event I produce, and it has saved countless hours and reduced stress for me and my clients. Whether you’re planning a virtual conference, webinar, or hybrid meeting, this tool is a game-changer. Have you used a run-of-show in your events? What’s your top tip for keeping virtual events smooth and professional? Let me know in the comments! #VirtualEvents #EventPlanning #RunOfShow #ProfessionalTips #CalmClearMedia

Here’s how I’d scale a B2B tech company with virtual events: 1. Differentiate the company and make it the go-to for our niche To do: Create virtual events around solving the pain points of prospects by providing the knowledge and tools that they need to succeed in their roles/business, a.k.a, educational events. Types of events: Live podcasts or Q/As, masterclasses, webinars or workshop series, 3-day challenges, a brand summit or conference. Strategy: - Conduct customer interviews to uncover the pain points that directly and indirectly relate to the solution(s) we provide. - Stay in tune with industry trends, regulation changes, and other topics prospects are interested in. - Invite trusted thought leaders as speakers or contract a thought leader (either internal subject matter expert or external) as a regular host. Craft topics that clearly state expected outcomes, and deliver on that promise. Results: Get the brand’s name out there, attract new prospects (whether they are ready to buy or not), get a library of content to repurpose as blog articles, short clips, infographics, templates, etc., to position the company as the go-to for knowledge to succeed in their role/business. 2. Show prospects how the product solves their problems by leading with value To do: Create virtual events around prospects’ pain points that our product directly solves. Types of events: Webinars or workshops, masterclasses, a summit or conference. Strategy: - Invite customers (who are also trusted thought leaders) as speakers. - Partner with another software that solves a different pain point for the same ICP. - Craft topics that clearly state expected outcomes, and deliver on that promise. - Show them a clear roadmap to solve their problems with vs. without our product. Results: Prospects leave with the understanding of how to solve their problems with the product. Generate pipeline and qualified opportunities. 3. Bring customers and SQLs/SQOs together to see the product in action To do: Create events that bring customers and prospects together in the same “virtual” room Types of events: Customer webinars, product demo webinars, a summit or conference. Strategy: - Invite only hot leads - SQLs, SQOs, and free trial users. - Product demos, summit or conference breakout sessions: The speaker/moderator/host should be someone from your team who understands the ins and outs of the product, knows how to run effective demos and answer questions, a.k.a sales. - Customer webinars, summit or conference breakout sessions: The speaker/moderator/host should be a power user who understands the ins and outs of the product, can show how they use the product to solve their problems, and answer questions. - Go straight into product demo and effectively answer questions. Results: Demos booked, free trials, closed-won deals, revenue. The best part is, you can run all these virtual events at a significantly low cost without ads. Thoughts?

Calling all event leaders planning meetings with a global audience, this one is for you. Where do you start when your delegates span multiple countries, time zones, and cultures? For me, it always comes back to structure: - The agenda design that keeps energy up and voices heard - The technology stack (ours or yours) that supports interaction and scale - And yes, language access so everyone can contribute with confidence Why it matters: 👉 Research shows that audience attention starts to drop after just 10 minutes in a meeting without interaction (University of Southern California). 👉 A recent survey found that 72% of attendees prefer interactive formats such as polls, Q&A, or breakout discussions compared with static slide presentations (Learning Guild). 👉 Virtual event studies show that audiences retain 95% of a message in video, compared with only 10% when reading it (Insivia). 👉 77% of event professionals saw a rise in multilingual meetings last year, and 72% expect that to grow (Wordly) 👉 65% of people prefer content in their native language, and 40% disengage if it is not available (CSA Research) The lesson is simple: running a global meeting takes more than scheduling and slides. It is the combination of clear agenda design, the right technology, and thoughtful inclusivity planning that makes events work. 👉 Want to hear more? Reach out to Open Audience or contact Leslie Robertson or Pedro Malha direct. Always happy to share what we know and see. #GlobalEvents #AudienceEngagement #EventDesign #DelegateExperience

Putting Together A Successful Virtual Media Event for Beauty + Fashion Launches At my fashion and beauty PR agency VLIV Communications, we do a lot of events for clients to get them valuable face-time with top-tier editors, particularly during a new product or collection launch. We do a lot of in-person events, but a good Zoom event still has its place! These are great for clients who can't make it to NYC due to scheduling conflicts. How does a successful virtual event for a beauty or fashion launch come together? A LOT of preparation and follow-up! Below is a little cheat sheet of how we execute impactful virtual editor events for clients. 1) Pulling the invite list We ensure the key media we want in attendance is on the list. 2) Writing the pitch + invite A compelling hook to entice them to come to the event and learn more is crucial. 3) Sourcing the pictures We need LOTS of high-quality pictures - both for our email outreach to give editors a sense of the new products, and for story coverage after. 4) Lots of prep calls with clients At VLIV, we do robust media training to make sure our clients feel super comfortable with their presentation and any and all questions that arise! 5) Soooo much follow-up After our initial rounds of invites go out, we follow-up...and then follow-up a little more. We try to balance being polite with persistence! 6) The main event! The day of the event, we all make sure our audio and video are working, and that we're all in a location with good sound and lighting. Note that most editors keep cameras off and don't always engage - this isn't at all a sign of disinterest! They're usually quietly absorbing info and taking notes. 7) Follow-through after the fact More follow-up - the name of the game in PR. We send out additional photos, press releases, fact sheets, and check-in on product send-outs. We stay in contact with editors who attended to see if they have a fit for coverage or need anything else. Sometimes coverage doesn't drop until months later - it depends on the publication's timeline. Our virtual events have garnered coverage in outlets like WWD, Byrdie, InStyle, Allure Magazine, and many more. If you're curious about the inner workings of our PR agency, feel free to subscribe to our newsletter The VLIV Edit, linked in comments below, where we give an inside look on everything trending in the beauty, fashion, and lifestyle PR space. #BeautyPR #FashionPR #BeautyMarketing #FashionMarketing #MediaRelations ✨✨✨ I'm Lindsey, the Founder and President of VLIV Communications, a NYC based PR agency that catapults beauty, fashion, wellness and CPG brands to new levels of business growth with impactful media coverage. Feel feel to DM me or email me if you have any PR questions!