12 Opinion
September, 2020
Twelve years of staging hybrid
events has taught us key
narrowcasting lessons as conferences
look to progress from the
arbitrary ‘bolt-on video’ stage.
We need new solutions for delegates
and viewers, but also for
exhibitors and sponsors which are
just as confused and distressed
in lockdown, facing budgets cuts
and unsure about ROI in the digital
world of hybrid narrowcasting.
Much like football club owners in
the 1980s worrying about the impact
of Sky live broadcasting (of what
would become the Premier League)
matches, will anyone turn up in
future if they can just watch online,
and will we ever make revenue or
do business the same way again?
The answer is yes and no. Yes, you
can make money from hybrid events
but not in the way you think, not in
the format you have, and not with the
skillsets and revenue models of today.
Avoiding the
narrow view
Neil Stewart, editorial director of the Narrowcast Media
Group, on a new age of thinking
A virtual audience is not a captive
audience, committed to a day away at
the QEII Centre, ExCeL or Fira Gran
Via Barcelona. The impatience of live
audiences is terrifying; they are time
poor. Following magazine publishers
into short webinars and bitesize
flies the flag but is not the solution.
Great conferences and exhibitions
are majestic, thrilling, properly
curated, industry intelligence gatherings.
They are content rich milestones
in business planning, are product
launchpads and key people networking.
Words
Neil Stewart
There will always be a demand
for that. The real question is what
value video can add. The answer
is a lot of new high value, specialist
narrowcast audiences. However,
fixating on the live online audiences
is a strategic mistake.
On-demand and catch-up is the
future. When the live show is finished
you are only halfway through the
narrowcasting job and most conference
and events companies are
not set up for that extended cycle.
Your content is king, but it
needs to be curated in new ways.
Zoom and its imitators only take
us so far. Venue and catering savings
are false dawns. Narrowcasting
is more than the costs of cameras
and crews at live hybrid events.
Future live and online event producers
need to rethink their models.
The new hybrid world will break
the barriers between live and
online creating new audiences,
new formats, new kinds of content
with winners and losers; the shock
of narrowcasting will be as big for
B2B as Netflix to broadcasting TV
and Hollywood. Get in touch to
understand the new hybrid normal.
Visit us at
www.neilstewartassociates.co.uk