Planning Hybrid and Virtual Meetings & Events

It’s such an exciting time for planner ingenuity within the meetings & event industry! As things around us continue to evolve and change, hybrid and virtual capabilities have become crucial components throughout the event planning process. While these platforms have been around for a while, they can feel new to many event organizers.

Don’t get overwhelmed when planning your next hybrid or virtual event. Together, we’ve got this!

Quick Refresher: What’s a hybrid event?

Hybrid meetings and events create a two-dimensional environment—one with an in-person component and a virtual online component. Essentially, one event…two experiences for attendees.

Some advantages of hybrid & virtual events

• Greater attendee reach due to remote capabilities
• Can be more cost-effective for attendees and planners
• Offer short-term flexibility within the planning process
• Create new opportunities to engage attendees
• Promote eco-friendliness and sustainability

What planners need to execute seamlessly

You’ll need the tech and the team. The two-events-in-one strategy requires an orchestration of all the right elements (there can be a lot going on!). With all of the advantages and opportunities of hybrid and virtual events comes new challenges for planners.

You need venues with the best technology infrastructure, adequate power, reliable A/V capabilities, incredibly fast internet speed and more. You need a ready and equipped team to facilitate the hybrid or virtual experience and help alleviate the stress of planning. You need a destination that can do it all.

Boise Centre

Situated in the heart of downtown is Boise Centre, Idaho’s premier convention center that boasts 31 meeting rooms and a fully-customizable virtual event studio on site.

Whether you are planning to meet face-to-face or hold a hybrid event with virtual and in-person attendees, the Centre’s audiovisual experts are ready to help you engage, inform, and connect virtually with your audience. Boise Centre offers event organizers a complete solution with robust video conference and streaming services, professional quality event design and full in-house editing services.

Couple Boise Centre’s expert audiovisual team and the convention center’s robust network infrastructure – 2 GB and you’ve got access to a seamless meeting experience both onsite and from locations across the globe.

We can help

Our team at Boise Convention & Visitors Bureau understands that hybrid events are immersive experiences and take different tactics for both in-person and virtual attendees. If you’re new to this form of planning, we can help support your event’s transition into the hybrid or virtual space by:

• Working with the right hoteliers and vendors to help accommodate your unique hybrid or virtual event
• Providing insights for attendee engagement and networking in the online space
• Providing ideas for digital benefits to help you add value to your sponsors
• Supporting contingency planning

If someone on our team can’t help you with exactly what you need, then we’ll pull from our community resources as well as virtual and hybrid event experts to ensure a successful event.