How To Gamify Your Hybrid Events Or Ideas To Boost Engagement In Hybrid Events With Gamification

Meta Description – Hybrid events are, as we can understand by their name, a mix between a live event and a virtual event.

Event organizers were separately enjoying the benefits of physical and virtual events. But both the event formats had their limitations. 

While physical events restricted them in terms of the audience footfall, virtual event organizers struggled to keep their audiences hooked throughout the event. 

That’s when marketers identified a new strategy: Hybrid Events. Allow us to introduce you to the concept better.

What Are Hybrid Events?

Simply put, when you bring the physical and virtual events together, it gives rise to a new concept of events called hybrid events. Hybrid events manage to overcome all the barriers virtual and physical events face separately and multiply the benefits they both bring. 

The best part? Brands and event organizers get to touch a larger set of audiences, create dynamic audience engagement possibilities, get improved ROI, build a stronger community & network, and much more!

With so many benefits, an overwhelming 97% of marketers are confident that Hybrid events will become more prominent going forward. Want to know how to boost the engagement rate at your hybrid event? Here are some ideas for you.

Ideas To Boost Engagement In Hybrid Events With Gamification

When you introduce gamification to your hybrid event, it ensures that each and every audience member participates. Introduce games to your hybrid event that involves both your physical and virtual audience. 

For instance, if yours is a networking event, pay rewards to your hybrid audience for each time they make a connection, and they can further avail the rewards as discount coupons for your sponsors’ or your own products and services. Or you can organize quizzes and trivia between both your physical and virtual audience and bridge their communication gap.

Here are some detailed ideas to boost engagement in hybrid events with gamification.

• Display A Social Wall

A social wall is a live tool that enables users to fetch social media content in real-time and display it on the social wall. A social wall has proven to be great incorporation for every event type. Especially for hybrid events when you want your virtual and physical events to stick together. You can organize a hashtag contest for your hybrid audience.

Make sure to use a unique and memorable hashtag. You can display the social wall on the digital screen at the event premises and display the same on your virtual event platform. It will encourage your hybrid audience to participate, which will improve your event’s social media presence to a great extent.

• Create Interesting Workshops

One thing that entices people is when they get to learn something new. So, instead of making your hybrid event just about discussions, give your hybrid audience something that keeps them interested. You can organize workshops where your audience gets to learn something. 

For example, if your event revolves around gaming, then it is easy to assume that your audience is always interested in knowing what new games are in the market or how they can reach a certain level of a game. As an event organizer, you can display the game on big screens at your physical event and also display it at your virtual event platform. It will ensure that both your audience remain glued throughout the event.

• Organize Live Q&A Sessions

Humans are curious animals, and when you give them an opportunity, they never feel hesitant to ask questions. Give your hybrid event audience a common space where they can ask questions to the speakers. You can encourage your hybrid audience to ask you questions on Twitter by tweeting using your event hashtag or by mentioning you. 

You can collect the tweets and display them on a big screen during the live stream. Ask the speaker to read the questions aloud and mention the attendees’ names who have asked the question. It is a great way to involve your dynamic hybrid audience and make them feel important.

• Send Out Live Updates On Smartphones

It is important to keep your hybrid audience informed throughout the event so that they don’t drift away or get distracted. Give live event updates to your hybrid audience about all the important & upcoming sessions to make sure your audience members reach the session on time.

But you also want to make sure that it doesn’t end up becoming an annoying pop-up which your hybrid audience members get irritated by. So give your hybrid audience an option to filter their notifications or allow them to choose the session they want to receive notifications for, either way, the reminders will ensure to keep your audience hooked throughout.

• Include Fillers To Keep The Virtual Attendees Hooked

Let’s address the fact that you have a virtual and a physical audience, and to keep them engaged, you will have to serve them accordingly. It is much easier to keep your physical audience engaged as they are already there at the event venue. To keep your virtual event audience hooked, use fillers so that they don’t get distracted and leave the virtual event platform, leading to a higher bounce rate.

You can place this wall in your social virtual events around the lobby area to create engagement opportunities. You can play short films for the virtual audience to keep them entertained in between the sessions. Your options are endless, and serve your audience as per their needs.

• Introduce Photo Booth To Both The Audiences

No event is complete without a photo booth, so why should your hybrid event stay behind? Introduce a hybrid photo booth to your hybrid event, which both your physical and virtual audience can use. 

You can use digital screens to display all the pictures clicked by the hybrid audiences. It is a great way to create social proof and encourage more users to click pictures using the photo booth.

Let’s Call It A Wrap!

Now that we have reached the end of this blog, we hope that you have a better understanding of the concept of hybrid events and how by implementing certain ideas, you can boost your hybrid event’s engagement rate with gamification to a great extent. 

So what are you waiting for? Try out all the amazing strategies we mentioned above to maximize your results like never before!