During a pandemic all live events have been cancelled, so the alternative is to have online virtual events. Here are the top 10 tips to help you plan the best virtual event. 

1. Time zones: Virtual Events can be viewed by anyone around the world.  Know your audience and consider a time zone that suits everyone best or creating multiple sessions.
2. Manage attendees for paid events: Protecting your online content is important.  If you require payment, make sure you host your event on a platform that requires a login and can only be accessed by one login at a time.
3. Keeping the audiences attention: Create interactive aspects to engage the audience and maintain their attention.  Taking surveys with real live polls or playing simple games like iSpy, will keep people from getting distracted.
4. Presentation Style: If most of your viewers are on a mobile device,  consider the font sizes and amount of words you use. Consider using more graphics then text.
5. Accessibility / Compliance: Make sure that your event is ADA, S-508, WCAG, EN 301 549, and GDPR complaint.  We recommend looking at Userway.org for more information.
6. Data Collecting: When registering users, collect information such as their: Preferred days/times, and method for attending (desktop/mobile), as your audience habits may have changed in the past few months.
7. After Parties: Make sure to choose entertainment that has live crowd participation.   Anyone can watch a YouTube video, but to make it special, your audience must feel like the content is exclusive and personalized to them.
8. Event Analytics: Use a tool to understand aspects of your audience during the event.  How long they watch, what do they click on, how interactive they are, when they tune and when they tune out, so that you can make smart decisions on adjusting future events. Check out our online DJ battle as an example. 
9. Support: Have a quick way to help people in need.  Online events are not second nature to many people, so ensure you have a way someone that is having trouble can get the assistance they need.
10. Communication: There’s hundreds of new online platforms to host events these days.  It’s important to communicate to the audience early if there’s any software to download and testing needed.  This will reduce frustration, maintain audience levels, and cut down on last minute support calls.

We hope these tips are helpful to you when you plan your next event!