Choosing the Best Hybrid Meeting Venue

As pandemic restrictions loosen globally, your organization may be leaning towards having a hybrid meeting to slowly ease back into having physical attendees, while still remaining compliant to health and safety protocols. Unlike virtual-only meetings, hybrid meetings have additional requirements such as a physical venue, and the need of state-of-the-art audio & video production equipment.

Here is a checklist of the factors to consider when choosing the best hybrid meeting venue. Click on the links below to learn more about each factor the venue must have.

• Monitoring and Control
• Meeting Space
• Zoning
• Microphones
• Projector Screens
• Network
• Power and Access Points
• AV Equipment and Production
• Venue Lighting
• Food and Beverages
• Isolation Room

Successfully holding meeting events through a hybrid setting, requires choosing the ideal meeting venue that can accommodate the following:

Monitoring and Control

The hybrid meeting venue should be equipped with the necessary monitoring and control equipment such as temperature scanners / detection systems to comply with venue health and safety protocols. The venue itself should also allocate staff who can screen guests and meeting participants before entry to the hybrid meeting venue.

Any person that has carries any COVID-19 symptoms must be immediately denied entry and contact tracing protocols be in place in the event of such occurrences. Ensure all potential entry and exit points (e.g. routes to and from carparks, public transport, etc.) are considered so that no guests are “missed” from these mandatory checks.

Sufficient Hybrid Meeting Venue Space for Social Distancing

Consider the hybrid meeting venue and space available to allow for appropriate movement of guests, seating arrangements on stage and floor, furniture (tables, chairs, display stands), and other meeting fixtures. Some venues may allow higher number of allowed attendees that indicated to maximize the venue capacity, check this by asking for the actual venue measurements and suggested floor plans.

The ideal number of audience members that can be accommodated is usually half or even fewer during COVID-19 times. For example, a classroom style layout would allow for fewer people to be seated on stage compared to a theatre style layout. The stage must allow for the minimum number of people to be seated after applying safe distancing rules.

Zoning

To ensure safety, it is recommended to divide the hybrid meeting venue into appropriate zoning or smaller zones to avoid intermingling amongst guests. Appropriate and well planned out zoning will ensure good movement of meeting participants and minimize any potential risks.

Microphone Stands/Wireless Microphones

Microphone stands can be placed with sufficient distance from the seats so that hybrid meeting participants that are present physically can walk up to the stands and queue for any questions. If this is not possible, check if the meeting venue has wireless microphones that can be passed to the guest by allocated staff.

Ensure that the hybrid meeting venue is able to provide the type of microphones your presenters or panelists are familiar and comfortable with. Some meeting participants would prefer handheld or lapel microphones, while some may prefer gooseneck microphones.

Projector Screens

The hybrid meeting venue must be able to have the necessary projector screens as this where the meeting participants attending virtually will appear. Ensure that all meeting participants, especially those seated at the last row, are able to view the stage or projector screens with no obstruction.

Network

Make sure that there is dedicated network bandwidth (at least 50 Mbps) available to facilitate live streaming, ideally in a wired ethernet connection. The hybrid meeting space must also able to provide a separate reliable WiFi connection for guests to “check in” to the venue, submit textual questions, vote, view meeting documents and other meeting actions.

Lastly, check with the venue partner of the redundancies the venue has in place should the primary network fail or any network disruptions are encountered.

Power and Access Points

There must be sufficient power points and outlets for use near locations such as the registration booths, main area where the “live-streaming” is conducted, and digital signages.

AV Equipment and Production

Preferably choose a hybrid meeting venue that has built-in AV equipment and an in-house production team. This is recommended as the in-house team will be familiar with the venue space and their current set up (cameras, sound, LED screens etc.) is already the most ideal for the venue. This is also the most cost efficient way as you won’t need to bring in an outsourced AV team and incur additional charges such as transportation fees for venue set up/tear down.

Also, check that there are cameras (at least two), audio mixers, confidence monitors, speakers provided. The production crew should minimally include a live stream engineer, camera operators and sound/lighting technicians for the hybrid meeting.

Good Lighting

Lighting is very important for any events so it would be appropriate that the meeting venue has appropriate lighting available for the stage and floor.

Food and Beverage

Just like any physical meetings or event, it is courteous to have available refreshments for the participants. Food and beverages that are prepared should be individually portioned and not presented in a buffet format to keep social distancing. Make sure as well that there is adequate space or a separate room for meeting participants and guests to dine with minimal mingling.

Measures Regarding Isolation Room

Check the hybrid meeting venue’s policies in terms of guests who suddenly develop symptoms of COVID-19 in the area. There must be standard and safety procedures in place to ensure that contact with other guests are minimized to avoid potential transmission. Ideally, the chosen venue should have a designated isolation room should any guest become unwell or require medical assistance while attending the hybrid meeting.

Choosing the Best Venue for Your Hybrid Meeting

Essentially, choosing the best hybrid venue requires a lot of thoughtful planning and preparation. With the world still going through the pandemic and the potential risks involve, ensuring that event not only goes smoothly, but that all meeting participants will be safe is key.

Prioritizing the well-being of your meeting participants while ensuring that they can adequately participate in the meeting through physical or remote means will guarantee a successful hybrid meeting event for your organization.

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Holding a hybrid meeting requires using a meeting software solution that allows for meeting participants to also join in virtually. ConveneAGM is our virtual and hybrid meeting solution that allows organizations to hold hybrid meetings with guaranteed participant engagement and intuitive features such as streamline meeting registration, real-time broadcast, live voting, and live Q&A.

Read here the FAQs on how to use ConveneAGM for your virtual or hybrid meetings.