How should I decide whether my IRL event is worth streaming?
A very good question that more people should ask themselves. Allow us to answer the question with a question.
Are you available to devote enough time to create a separate experience from your IRL experience? Do you have the budget to create both experiences?
It is important to understand that a quality/engaging livestreamed experience requires separate thinking than an IRL event. For your IRL event, you wouldn’t just send a printed invitation to an event and ask a caterer to whip something up. In the same way, you shouldn’t just point a camera and hope for the best. A quality show does require a full separate effort and thinking. If you don’t have the time and resources to plan for a separate event, then it’s probably best to focus on your IRL experience and do that well. The results you will garner from pointing a single camera to a speaker will probably kill all future budget opportunities to do a good livestreamed show in the future as management may come to believe that the results aren’t there.
But should you carve out time and budget? Here are a few benefits to going hybrid to weigh against the necessary investment:
Higher viewership: how valuable is each pair of eyeballs to your ROI?
High-value guest speakers or talent can participate without having to travel making them more attainable
Content that lives on beyond the in-person experience: video on Demand, recaps, presentations, downloadable elements, etc. How much would you normally spend to have your audience interact with similar content?
E-commerce integration
Tiered/Lower priced tickets
