.orgCommunity connects association executives, entrepreneurs and strategic partners dedicated to shaping the future of associations. Each year, .orgCommunity hosts an annual Solutions Day conference to showcase innovative programs and products that are helping associations increase membership, generate revenue, and strengthen their organizations. The event helps attendees be forward-thinking and innovative and allows them to build connections to help tackle
their challenges.
Since before the pandemic, .orgCommunity has offered Solutions Day as a hybrid conference. Long before Zoom was omnipresent, Solutions Day virtual attendees participated via Zoom.
For Solutions Day 2023, .orgCommunity leaders Kevin Ordonez and Sherry Budziak wanted a different type of hybrid event, one that went beyond Zoom and allowed for more collaboration among attendees.
Client
Services
Meeting App Design
User Experience
Development
Live Streaming
Broadcast Support
Goals
For Solutions Day 2023, .orgCommunity wanted to elevate the event for their virtual attendees, creating an experience that felt like it had been crafted just for them. They were also interested in exploring how to bridge the in person and virtual experiences, creating ways for virtual attendees to feel the energy of the in person event and network with other attendees.
Solution
.orgCommunity turned to Matrix Group and our BeSpeake virtual and hybrid event technology platform for Solutions Day 2023. BeSpeake staff participated in planning meetings with the .orgCommunity team and together we crafted a program that was more inclusive of the virtual attendees. BeSpeake was the mobile application that all attendees used to:
- Explore the conference schedule on a desktop computer or mobile device.
- View the full attendee list and message each other.
- View a list of sponsors and their service offerings.
In addition, virtual attendees enjoyed an experience that was designed specifically for them:
- Virtual attendees were able to watch all sessions, which were streamed live from Chicago.
- A separate feed of the slides allowed the BeSpeake broadcast engineer to display the slides alongside the speaker, making the slides legible to virtual attendees.
- Virtual hosts served as guides to the program for virtual attendees at the start of the day, during the breaks, and at the end of the day.
- A networking lunch in a video room allowed virtual attendees to meet each other, discuss the sessions, and just generally have a great conversation.
- There was even a bonus session that only took place virtually during an in-person break, where one of the attendees joined the virtual hosts for a conversation about his organization’s AI initiative.
Solutions Day 2023 was a huge success.
of virtual registrants stayed until the very end
of in person attendees logged in to use the schedule and attendee list
Result
Solutions Day 2023 was a huge success – in person and virtually. One virtual attendee said in the chat, “This is the nicest hybrid event I’ve ever been to. It’s really fantastic. I’m high risk for COVID and in person events are always a serious risk analysis for me. Being able to tap into something like this so thoroughly with low stress and no risk is fantastic!! Way to make virtual attendees feel like VIPs.”
Perhaps more importantly, over 90% of the virtual registrants stayed until the very end of the day’s virtual programming. And about 30% of the in person attendees logged in to the virtual platform to check out the schedule and attendee list.
