It was all hands on deck with three virtual events over the course of two weeks! We started with a Skills Workshop Meeting followed by a Virtual Medical Offices Tour and closed it out with a CSR Meeting. 

Virtual Medical Offices Tour 

Overview: Kaiser Permanente recently opened their new Clairemont Mesa Medical Offices. In order to still celebrate this grand opening, they decided to film a virtual tour and do a live program, with a ribbon cutting ceremony and virtual chair stretch. 

Highlight: Filming a tour rather than taking people on a physical tour allowed us the opportunity to capture drone footage which added a special touch to the video, as well as add music and a professional voice over. 

What we learned: When filming a video throughout the day it is important to consider lighting changes as the day goes on. We wanted our tour video to be consistent, so paying attention to details like these is key.

CSR Meeting 

Overview: This was a three-day virtual summit for over 130 attendees with sessions including panels, hands-on workshops, awards ceremony, and 1:1 speed dating. To accommodate the client’s global attendance, the event was held in the AM and PM each 4-hours in length. 

Highlight: Hosting this event virtually for the first time, the client was able to engage three-times as many attendees as they would have in-person due to budget. This gave attendees a chance to network with colleagues they’ve never worked with or met before.

What we learned: Although virtual events may seem to be less complicated than in-person, there’s a lot of new content that we as planners need to learn. Create a day-of support team; always have at least one additional team member’s assistance to help with day-of assignment, so the project manager can focus on the show flow/client relations. You will still want customer service support and tech support no matter the size.

Skills Workshop Meeting

Overview: The client hosts an annual week long skills workshop – this year’s being virtual. The virtual workshops were four days in length and were attended by both West and East Coast attendees. The agendas for each person differed, with sessions including general sessions, small group meetings, demo tables, awards, evening networking, and breakouts. We had over 600 attendees each with their own personalized schedules which equated to around 600 session rooms in total when the event concluded. 

Highlight: A highlight of the event was the ability of our event team (RHE & internal) to successfully manage all of the attendees, speakers, and moderators. There was a lot happening simultaneously, at any given time, yet the event was organized and ran smoothly. This event was a large virtual event and was a great learning experience for everyone who was involved. I would also highlight the teamwork that went into pulling off this event, as collaboration and communication were key.

What we learned: We learned a lot from this event, mostly lessons in the virtual event realm and with the Bizzabo platform. Most of the attendee issues stemmed from having to clear their cache/cookies due to the Bizzabo platform storing data. A tip is to have a PDF of the instructions on clearing your cache/cookies on hand so you are able to send it to the attendees.  Another tip for events where attendees need to be on camera/microphone is to create a test session for attendees to check their camera and microphone.  It was helpful to send the attendees a link to test their computer bandwidth before the event. We included this in the confirmation email as well as in the Know Before You Launch email.