In-Person, Virtual, Hybrid: How Events Are Changing

STEVE HENDERSHOT

When COVID-19 hit, gathering in large groups became a nonstarter. Teams had to innovate to adapt events, whether that meant going fully online or taking a hybrid approach. But no matter if the event is virtual or in person, the main goal remains the same: Create an engaging experience.

Take the Eurovision Song Contest. One key to pulling off the massive, televised music competition is to keep the audience top of mind—those in person as well as the millions upon millions of viewers at home.

NADJA BURKHARDT

When you’re working on a project, and a program, and an event like the Eurovision Song Contest, the scope is huge. You’re going out to something like 200 million people out there in the audience. Those are not people that you’re in touch with regularly. But ultimately, that’s the audience you’re reaching. And to reach that audience, your people management skills and project management are key.

NARRATOR

The world is changing fast. And every day, project professionals are turning ideas into reality—delivering value to their organizations and society as a whole. On Projectified^®, we’ll help you stay on top of the trends and see what’s ahead for The Project Economy—and your career.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

This is Projectified^®. I’m Steve Hendershot.

From trade shows to awards shows, conferences to concerts, live events made a huge pivot over the last couple of years, embracing online or hybrid versions of their signature programs to keep going amidst the pandemic. As restrictions are lifted, people are gathering again, and events are happening in person—but some of the changes experienced during 2020 and 2021 are likely here to stay. For example, two-thirds of event professionals plan to use hybrid events as a go-to format going forward, according to a survey from EventMB.

Today we’ll speak to a couple of project leaders about how they’re dealing with the changing landscape, and about how they approach the project complexities of pulling off great events in 2022.

We begin in Geneva with Nadja Burkhardt, supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest at the European Broadcasting Union. She’ll be leading her team in Turin, Italy, the host city for the famed annual music competition’s 2022 edition.

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STEVE HENDERSHOT

When it comes to the Eurovision Song Contest, every year is different. You can’t plan for the next year until you know the winner. How much of a logistical challenge is it that the venue changes in unpredictable ways every year?

NADJA BURKHARDT

That’s one logistical challenge. I mean, it’s not just the venue that changes. The whole team we work with changes everywhere: the team of the host broadcaster, the team of the host city. We work with a new venue. We work with new tools, new environment, a new language, a new culture. Change is just a constant for us.

Our work actually starts the night that an artist wins. And that’s when the change kicks in—on the next day when we start touching base with a new host broadcaster, and then over the next few weeks we work out the whole organization. We start working out the host city. And from then on, we only have nine or 10 months left to actually set up the next shows in a new country, a new city, a new venue with new logistics. Sometimes we’re in a stadium. Sometimes we’re in a trade fair center with different teams on-site. We’re used to this. I mean, this is how it’s been working for 66 years now. That’s where the whole information management kicks in, and that’s where the knowledge transfer is important.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

So then how about the curveballs of the last few years? It’s already an immense challenge, but then you’re also dealing with a pandemic, something that no one’s had experience with.

NADJA BURKHARDT

No, not for that. It’s the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was canceled in 2020. Like many other events, like the Olympic Games, concerts, all kinds of live events were canceled. And that’s something that had never happened in 65 years. So for us, it was a big thing that we had to cancel in 2020.

And even though what we call contingency planning—planning ahead for plan B, plan C, in case this or that happens in the area of you name it: accreditation, ticketing, the show, the contest, all that we always have in mind—but a pandemic we didn’t have in mind. We actually managed to set up a very good organization around that. That came in the form of what we call the “live on tape.” After the 2020 edition, we have a live recording on tape of the 40-plus performances that we can use in case we need to use them during the live show.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

What other safety net elements or logistical changes have been made to pull off the event these last couple of years?

NADJA BURKHARDT

What we had to do during the COVID years was things like make the delegations lighter. We had much bigger delegations before. We’ve downsized delegations and actually realized that it works quite well with smaller delegations. We’ve downsized the size of our press center, for example, and we now have an on-site and an online press center. Our main objective is actually making sure that ultimately, we have a show and a competition. So we always have that in mind: that we need to have everything in place if there is a cancellation, or if anything happens, that our show actually takes place.

The other thing that I should mention is maybe the rise of social media. Social media was already increasing before. Because of the fact that we didn’t know if we were going to have [an] audience last year, and that we had all those changes over the past two years, social media has taken a huge importance. The consequence of that is actually the young audiences have also increased enormously. The Eurovision Song Contest actually attracts much more young people now than it used to, and that’s all a consequence of how things happened over the past years.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

So let’s talk about the process leading up to the contest. In some ways, you can copy and paste last year’s plan, but in another way, there are always new risks, new opportunities and so forth. As you restart this large project every year, what does that process look like?

NADJA BURKHARDT

That’s the difficult part actually because we have it all carved out. We know what we’re doing. We know exactly what it is we have to transpose from one year to the next. The difficulty is conveying the message to the next host broadcaster and to the next production team because we’re so much in it every day that everything we do seems extremely logical. But finding the right method to pass that information on to the team that you’re working with is key here.

We’ve got our methods. We have our organization. We have it all worked out. We have it all on paper, but it’s the daily work with the teams on-site, with the people from the venue, with the city, with the production team, with the host broadcaster. It’s that daily work that we do with them. It’s extremely important actually that we’re on-site two or three weeks before the show because that’s when you can actually get a lot done that you can’t get done when you’re not sitting together. On-site, you can fine-tune, you can work things out that you might have omitted. We really look forward to being on-site because that’s when things get very exciting.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

As you look to this year’s competition, how do you flag features that are different for a particular year? We’re still dealing with some form of COVID precaution and so forth. What’s one example of something that has been different about 2022 that is a unique feature that you’re preparing to implement?

NADJA BURKHARDT

There’s no unique feature as such. It’s a little bit hybrid this year because we’re still in a COVID world. We can’t ignore that COVID is still there. So we’re still working out health and safety protocol, and at the same time, everybody is keen on this is the first Eurovision Song Contest pretty much after COVID. Last year, we were in a total bubble where delegations were not allowed to leave their hotel. They were just commuting between hotel and venue. This year, we have a hybrid system in that people will be able to go outside. We’re still going to have to get tested every second day. We still have to watch out. We still need to make sure that artists are protected, that staff is protected, that the production team is protected.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Let’s turn to stakeholder management, because that’s one of the most fascinating parts of your job to me. There are so many stakeholders, from delegations and broadcast partners to audiences across countries. How do you handle all these interests?

NADJA BURKHARDT

That’s the work of our team throughout the year, actually. Our different stakeholders are, first of all, the executive producers. But it’s the whole production. It’s the delegations. It’s our partners. We’ve got a commercial partner. We have a voting partner. It’s the city, it’s the fans, it’s the press.

It’s extremely difficult to keep everybody happy at all times. There is a lot of frustration. To give you an example, there’s always a lot of frustrations when tickets go out, because people don’t get tickets. There’s frustration from press because they cannot get on-site accreditations. But we’re constantly working. We’re constantly behind our computers. We try to be in contact with everyone. We have a website where we post regular information on artists, on what’s going on. We feed the community, and I think that works quite well.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Do you expect this COVID era to change the way Eurovision looks in a truly post-COVID world? What will be the legacy of the last couple of years on your event, but then also, live events generally? What’s your best read on how events will look different as a result of this experience?

NADJA BURKHARDT

I would say they will look different, yes and no. No, because I’m sure every event, just like the song contest, has always had contingency planning. You’re always on the lookout for what would happen if. And this particular health and safety issue now is totally integrated into the way we work. We know that this can happen. It’s part of our daily job. We talk about health and safety constantly, and it’s not about COVID only anymore. It’s about the general scope of what health and safety can do.

But moving forward, the changes that are going to take place are just the natural changes that would’ve taken place. And I’m talking about things like the importance of social media, the importance of communication. The way the song contest and other events are going to evolve, it’s difficult to say today. But they are, obviously, going to evolve in function of other things that are going on in the world. That’s what makes it interesting is that you cannot always plan ahead for everything. You also need to leave a little margin for the unknown, and that’s where your project management skills come in, and that’s where your general planning and the way you work together is important.

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STEVE HENDERSHOT

You might think that a hackathon would be a relatively simple event to shift to a virtual format, given that the projects created by attendees are all digital. But that would ignore the true power of those events—all events, really—which is the way they facilitate community- and relationship-building.

So after organizing online and hybrid events for the last two years, the team at Junction—which hosts an annual hackathon that draws attendees from all over the world—is aiming to emerge from the pandemic with a best-of-both-worlds formula. I asked Akseli Aho, CEO at Junction in Helsinki, about his team’s approach for 2022.

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STEVE HENDERSHOT

You attended Junction 2019 as an in-person participant, and then Junction 2020 as a virtual one, before joining the organization’s leadership team. Given that background, tell me about your experience in 2021, when Junction refined its hybrid strategy during the pandemic’s second year.

AKSELI AHO

I started [in] September, so I was there to see last year’s main event as the CEO. That was super valuable for me. As the CEO, you get to see things from marketing, from operations, from the partnerships, so you really get an overview of the whole process and of the whole project. And for me, that was I think the best learning experience that helps me to organize the best event this year.

One thing that was a bit hard to achieve in 2020, from what I’ve heard, was that the engagement wasn’t on the same level as on the live events, which is pretty obvious. But I think in 2021, there [were] multiple things that we tried to switch up a little bit to increase the engagement for the participants and partners, and one of them was actually using an online platform that is way different from the traditional ones. We ended up using a platform, and if you have played Pokémon, it’s kind of like the Pokémon world where you have an avatar in it, and you actually get to walk around the world. When you walk to another person, it automatically opens up the microphone and the camera connection. I think that was one of those more creative attempts to increase the engagement with the participants.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

And did that work? Did you sense the people were connecting that way?

AKSELI AHO

We had better expectations for it than it kind of ultimately turned [out]. At the beginning of the event, we noticed that there was a lot of buzz going on in the [virtual] world. People were running around; they were chatting with each other. But I think once people started to create their projects of the hackathon, I think then the world emptied a bit, and people just focused on the work. And I think that’s what’s different from the live hackathons. Even though you start work with the project, you’re still on the venue, and you will still have those spontaneous discussions. And with the online version, when you close the tab of the online world, you are then alone in your room, and there is no interaction going on.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

So then, how do you think about this year? Is it back to normal or, whether it’s the avatar situation or other means of virtual engagement, how do you run the best of both worlds?

AKSELI AHO

It’s maybe the latter, so the best of both worlds. The past two years, they have been a great learning experience for our organization, and I think for the first time, we have actually really been pushing the limits of online events, and the results were surprisingly good. Because for me, at least, I thought that if somebody would have asked me in 2019, “Do you think it’s possible to organize an online hackathon that attracts 1,500 people?” I would have said, “Never. People will not join that kind of event because they want to see the lights, they want to hear the music. They want to see the other people live on the venue.”

But I think after seeing the two pandemic years, we have changed our mindset, and I think there is definitely room for hybrid and online events. But I think in the end, to get the best engagement for the participants and to create those spontaneous interactions, to kind of empower the people there to chat with each other, it’s much easier to create that kind of atmosphere on a live event.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

So you’ve learned to value in-person interactions, but also you’ve now learned some things about what can work from a hybrid perspective. So how will you implement those hybrid learnings—what will look different about Junction 2022 than the 2019 version?

AKSELI AHO

In 2022, we are going to have multiple events. I think that’s one of the misunderstandings about Junction—that we just organize one event per year. But I think the learning from the past years is that, for specific events, where we want to specifically focus on the interaction and the engagement for the participants, there we will choose the live format, even in the future. But for the events that we want to more focus on the subject itself, there we can utilize the hybrid and the online formats. And I think there are many benefits for the hybrid and online events. They are more accessible. People can join them from basically anywhere from the world, which leads to the fact that the events are more international. For hackathons especially, it’s a really interesting thing because if we have a team of four people, and let’s say the four people are from four different countries, there’s basically four different perspectives to the challenge and the problem that they’re trying to tackle. It brings really interesting results.

I could give an example of this year’s events. So we have an event called “Solve the SDGs.” That hackathon is specifically focused on finding solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. When we started to think with the team whether we want to organize this event in a live or in an online format, we pretty quickly decided that, “Okay, this is the type of event where we want to have participants from all around the world, and we want to give everybody the same opportunity to join this type of event.” I think in that event, specifically, the focus is more on the actual subject, and that’s one of the reasons why we decided to go for the hybrid format for that event.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Some audiences are going to really embrace that return to high-density events, that rock-concert energy. But other groups are going to want to maintain some space. How can live event teams accommodate that latter group, and still make the economics work—can hybrid elements bridge the gap?

AKSELI AHO

We have to come up with more means on how we can make it feel the same, even though the venues would be smaller or there would be less people. The venue needs to be designed well, and it needs to be designed so that even though there are less people, there would be those interactions. So let’s say in our venue, we have a partner area and a participant lounge, where people can basically just hang out and chill during the event. Simple things like designing the venue so that these areas are close to each other, those kinds of small things actually can make a big difference.

Last year, what we did, even though we had less physical participants, we had these things called hubs. They were these kinds of physical places where you could participate and kind of do the hacking for the hackathon. They were not like fully blown venues, but they were smaller live locations around the world, and I think things like that can work also in the future. So splitting an event to multiple venues, which have the same number of people in total but less people in the specific venues, I think that can also be one interesting way to execute hybrid events in the future.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Right now, what’s your biggest challenge or obstacle to pulling off Junction 2022?

AKSELI AHO

One of the obstacles is to get people moving after the pandemic years. I think at the same time, people are super excited to have live events again. But I think people are kind of now used to the online world, where it’s super easy and super low effort to participate in events. That’s what we need to kind of convince them is that live events are like nothing else. And you need to come there to actually see, and to feel, and to actually realize why live events were such a big thing before the pandemic. And I think that’s going to be hard for us to communicate: the value of the live event, even though it’s a bit harder to participate in it. You have to come there physically. You have to be present, and I think that’s something we need to focus on.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

What do you think will be the legacy of this era on conferences in the future? Look 10 years forward, someday when, hopefully, we’ve all forgotten about COVID, but this era will still have either just been a blip or left some imprint in terms of accelerating the adoption of new tech or other changes.

AKSELI AHO

People have gotten more used to digital platforms, which basically can be used to organize these kinds of events. There has been huge progress in these kinds of platforms, and I think, in the future, even combined with some virtual reality stuff, we can really make them interesting. Even that being said, I feel like we have to kind of take the best from both approaches, and we have to combine the aspects of the hybrid and the live events.

For us, what that means is for some events, we want to keep them hybrid to increase the accessibility for these events. We want to provide all the people in the world the possibility to participate in those events. Another benefit is, which is pretty similar to what I just mentioned, we can geographically gather people from all around the world to the events. But I think there is still the interactions which are superior in the live events, which are currently pretty hard to replicate in the virtual worlds. And I think even though the platforms would enable it, there [are] some human aspects that make it really hard to motivate people to use the virtual platforms in the same way that they would behave in an environment with all the people of the event.

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STEVE HENDERSHOT

Project teams have spent the last few years adapting and innovating to keep their live events going, spearheading online events as well as hybrid ones. Now, live events are beginning to make an enthusiastic, but also cautious, return. It’s up to project leaders to ensure that event attendees are safe and engaged—whether they’re in person, online or both.

NARRATOR

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