Speaking at Hybrid Events

Tips and Trends for Preparing to Speak at Hybrid Events

Professional speakers need to serve a bit like event planners when discussing and accepting opportunities to speak at hybrid events.

What is a Hybrid Event?

A hybrid event could have multiple meanings. You could be brought into a conference where the keynote speaker speaks from an in-person stage and then all breakout sessions are performed from speakers’ hotel rooms. You could find yourself on-stage speaking to a live audience and then having to turn occasionally to speak into a camera to a virtual audience. You may even be asked to deliver your speech live to an in-person audience and then go back to your hotel room and deliver it again to the virtual live audience!

Here we will provide an ongoing list of tips and trends you should know and put to practice as you are invited to consider speaking at hybrid events.

As Discussed on Make Money Speaking Clubhouse July 19, 2021

• Best part of attending any in-person event is “Hallway Talk”, meeting and talking to new people in person is priceless and therapeutic. As speakers we need to empathize with the audience that meeting people in person is what they’ve been longing for and missing so we need to be incorporating that into our presentations.
• Know well in advance (if possible) how break-out rooms are planned. You may have to come up with your own setup in your hotel room and connect remotely instead of the usual hard-wire setup.
• Expect WIFI to be undependable with high and low connectivity speeds.
• Hire your own producer, if possible, to be your assistant during virtual live presentations.
• Always ask the person hiring you to speak if you can bring your own producer or if they will be supplying you with one.
• Very rarely was video used in presentations by speakers at the NSA Convention. One of the possibilities as to why was because of unpredictable internet connectivity and bandwidth for remote viewers.
• Speakers need to adopt the mindset of an event planner for any speaking opportunity because most event organizers don’t know what technical aspects need to be in place for a successful event. Plus, you will look more professional and reliable.
• If you get booked to speak at an event in Las Vegas, expect certain limitations to cause some challenges such as: short staffing, high prices, low signage for directing audience members, underperforming internet capacity.