For so many years, events have been held in person only and whoever could attend attended, and those that couldn’t missed out. Over the last 3 years, events and event management as a field have changed and now many events are held either completely virtually or in hybrid mode. A LinkedIn study polled 1,830 event marketers across the world and 75% of respondents assume they will continue hosting virtual events and foresee that 40% of all future events will be virtual, 25% will be hybrid, and 36% will be in-person only.
For the attendees, having a choice of how to attend is great. For the virtual event planners, this may seem to make their jobs harder. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Hiring a good Virtual Events Production company can be incredibly valuable.
Jump to:
- How to produce a successful virtual event?
- What does a virtual event production company do?
- When to hire a production company/agency
- Top 5 best virtual event production companies
- Virtual event production checklist
- Kaltura virtual event production platform
- Summary
How to produce a successful virtual event?
The success of a virtual event is based on a few different factors. Were you able to reach your registration goals? What was the attendance like? Did you get good feedback about the topic and the speakers that you invited to your event? Were the attendees able to network and meet people in their industries? Did you get any solid leads out of the event? To answer these questions, you must get properly prepared before your event. Pick an event production company that will help you set up and send out registration invitations. Make sure that the platform you are using uses high-quality video and sound so your audience can hear everything your speakers have to say. Is any portion of the event going to be pre-recorded? Start working on those videos as soon as you can.
What does a virtual event production company do?
These days hosting a successful virtual event requires thinking outside the box and curating a memorable experience. From the initial concept and organization to the orchestration of the actual event, so many things can and do go wrong. This is where the production companies come in. Virtual Event Production companies focus on experience, execution, audience, value, and post-event analytics and will oversee the planning, creative design, AV, media, and of course, the platform on which you will be hosting your virtual event. All this is done so that you have time to focus on the big picture.
When to hire a production company/agency
If this is your first time running a virtual/hybrid event, it may be a good idea to consider hiring a production company. If you are short-staffed and don’t want to compromise the quality of your events, if you need help sprucing up your same-old, or if the success of the event is important to the future of your company, it may be time to hire a production company.
Top 5 best virtual event production companies
WRG
With a team of content producers, coordinators, and delivery experts they bring the creative vision to life at every touchpoint. Their technical experts deliver production excellence safely, sustainably, on budget, and on time. They work with vendors in every continent to ensure their technical delivery capability is first class, whether it be virtual session support through to local AV management.
George P. Johnson
powers digital brand experiences from the biggest events to the smallest screens, for clients such as Google, Facebook, Capcom, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, and Honda. They are longtime specialists in experiential marketing and continue to invest in digital tools, data analytics, and creative and live production talent to safeguard their leading position in the field of digital and virtual events.
Jack Morton
If Jack Morton’s impressive client includes countless Forbes List and Fortune 100 customers, such as Waze, Uber, NFL, MillerCoors, Honeywell, VMware, Google, and Adidas. They’ve been creating extraordinary event experiences for the last 80 years, first live, and now also virtual and hybrid events. They have earned accolades such as Brand Experience Agency of the Year and Best Virtual Experience.
Ashfield Event Experiences
a global events agency with a primary focus on the healthcare industry. With 5,000 employees across multiple locations worldwide, the event production company can handle hybrid, virtual and face-to-face settings. Their professionals all have solid tradeshow, conference, and event production agency backgrounds and pride themselves on staying at the very forefront of their specialism, combining cutting-edge digital procedures with tried-and-tested technology.
Encore Global
a leading global events production company that creates seamless end-to-end experiences for hybrid, virtual, or in-person meetings. Encore has more than 10 years of experience specializing in virtual and hybrid event production. They offer a variety of professional technology, production, and creative solutions to help you deliver your message to anyone, anywhere.
Virtual Event Production Checklist
- Event strategy and goals – what are you looking to get out of this event, and what are your KPIs?
- Event platform – What virtual platform are you going to use for this event? How will audiences watch and engage with your event? The platform should be an early-stage decision so you have time to purchase, train and build your event.
- Branding – once you have the platform, start making decisions on branding. What colors, logos, and hashtags do you plan to use for this event?
- Speakers – do you need help getting the speakers booked? Do your speakers need to be trained or will they benefit from multiple rehearsals? Think about what you need to do to make sure they are prepared for game day.
- Content – Start working on what your promotional emails and social media posts are going to say. Start collecting content for the virtual platform, like speaker bios, summaries of sessions, and suggested content for your guests to read and watch while they get ready for the event.
- Registration – set up your registration page and make sure it asks for all the pertinent information.
- VOD – do you want the content to be available for your audience after the event? Make sure the event platform you use has this option and that you record your sessions accordingly.
Kaltura virtual event production platform
Alongside a virtual event management company to partner with, you’ll need a platform on which to host your virtual event. Your virtual event platform should be reliable, robust, secure, comprehensive, and flexible. Kaltura Virtual Events, the leading virtual events platform, checks all these five qualities while offering state-of-the-art solutions for each stage of your event, from planning to execution and follow-up.
Kaltura Virtual Events is first and foremost about your brand, your community, and your experience. It has all the bells and whistles to offer your visitors a hyper-personalized and engaging experience, no matter the scale of your virtual event. Among Kaltura Virtual Events’ comprehensive list of features:
- Interactive features such as live chat, reactions, polls and quizzes, gamification, and interactive video paths.
- Extensive distribution options to social media channels or repurposing to on-demand video content to your landing page, website, or company video repository.
- Accessibility tools like captions and automatic translations.
- Search and discovery features to filter and find content, but also personal agendas, content recommendations, and personal media collections so no visitor needs to miss out on relevant content.
- Powerful sponsor features such as dedicated branded spaces, chat options, banner ads, bumper videos, and analytics for effective follow-up with leads.
Kaltura also offers fully tailored virtual event production and management services and White-Glove support. You can call on Kaltura’s planning and design event services to help you create the best experience possible for your brand and audience. Kaltura also proposes event operations support to ensure a smooth event. In other words, your virtual event will be managed by a team that has longstanding expertise in creating unique virtual events at scale, AND a deep understanding and working knowledge of the technology.
Summary
Your event is important to you and your business. To succeed, a lot of planning must go into making sure your event goes perfectly. You may want to seek the expertise of an event production company that has been planning events for years and has done research into what makes a virtual event successful, efficient, and valuable. Check out our top 5 list of event production companies or reach out to Kaltura to learn more about our powerful, cloud-based solution for hosting virtual and hybrid events.
