Virtual scientific congresses have been one of the surprise hits of the past year. While nothing can beat the buzz of a packed auditorium, the scientific community’s pivot to virtual has given us the opportunity to reimagine how people can engage with cutting edge research and clinical updates online.
Here are our five top tips for curating a virtual congress experience with impact:
- Go live: Virtual congresses mean it’s possible to pre-record presentations so all you have to do on the day is upload and press play. But when you lose the live element you also risk losing some of the qualities that make congresses great: the sense of excitement, the immediacy and the feeling of shared experience. There’s certainly a place for pre-recorded content, but we will always choose live when we can. Live Q&As are vital for audience engagement and there’s really no substitute.
- Take a deep dive into the platform: Virtual congress platforms can offer a mindboggling array of functionality to recreate real-life congress experiences and interactions. Before we start planning for a congress, we get to know the platform (and our client’s package) inside out so we can use everything on offer to grab our audience’s attention and inspire them to immerse themselves in our content.
- Make sure one thing leads to another: One of the things we love about virtual congresses is the opportunity they give us to create journeys through advertising, booth content and symposia. We always put the user journey front and centre and challenge ourselves to create surprising and memorable moments that inspire attendees to click on our advertisements, interact with our booths then attend our symposium.
- Innovate, don’t replicate: Simply replicating a physical congress experience in a virtual format doesn’t deliver for attendees, or for our clients. For example, live poll results that can be gathered in seconds in a physical symposium can take minutes online, interrupting the symposium’s all-important momentum and flow. Conversely, longer videos that would be out of place on a physical booth can be fantastically engaging in a virtual exhibition hall.
- Set your presenters up for success: We know that audience engagement is what makes an event a real success so we pull out all the stops to make sure presenters can create an interactive experience. From facilitating virtual panel discussions to encouraging audience members to engage with the congress platform, we maximise every opportunity to create connections and start conversations.
Want to find out more about our virtual congress offering? Get in touch with us today.
