Online, in-person and hybrid events
Should you host your event online or in person? Or both?
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, SFU Public Square primarily hosted in-person programming at physical locations. During the pandemic, we had to completely shift our model and learn through trial and error how to incorporate true engagement into online events. This included adding more accessibility measures to our events with features like closed captioning, transcripts and ASL interpretation.
With provincial health guidelines allowing us to host in-person events again, we are now experimenting with “hybrid” events—those that include both in-person and online components—that allow people even more options for participation.
We are continually learning and improving on how to make our programming more accessible and inclusive in both digital and physical spaces, but we hope to offer some guidance on what we have learned so far.
On this page
Choosing which platform to use for online engagement depends on what you are trying to achieve. Are you hosting a meeting? A lecture? A workshop? Do participants need to see each other? Hear each other? Write to one another?
While Zoom has become the online event platform of choice in recent years, it is not a perfect platform, nor is it the only one. Other platforms may be more suitable depending on the format of your event and the technologies your team and your audience are most familiar with.
Here some things to keep in mind when planning for an online event:
Consider your audience (and your team)
We should never assume that everyone knows how to use Zoom or other similar technologies. Think about the intended audience for your engagement and if there may be a learning curve for them to use the technology you choose. Consider if they have access to the internet and to a safe, quiet environment.
We recommend letting people know in advance what platform you are using, and providing them with instructions on how to use this platform to join and participate in the online event.
Consider the learning curve for your team as well as your audience in using a new platform. It's a good idea to choose a platform that your team has a good familiarity with, if possible, or can take the time in advance to learn.
User experience and devices
A participant’s experience of an online event can be completely different depending on whether they join from a desktop app, a browser, or a mobile device or tablet. Accessibility features like closed captioning and ASL interpretation may not be available on certain devices. It is important to let your participants know this in advance and ensure you can offer troubleshooting across devices.
Safety, security, moderation and troubleshooting
When choosing a platform and how you will use it, think about your intended audience and how best to create a space that will make them feel safe, comfortable and encouraged to engage.
- Ask yourself how you will be able to troubleshoot issues and help participants who are having problems using this platform. Ensure that there is at least one person on your team assigned to a tech support role during the event, someone who has a solid understanding of how the platform works and feels comfortable helping participants with tech issues.
- Consider what security measures are available through the platform (learn about the security measures Zoom offers here).
- With the platform you choose, can you remove harmful comments or remove participants if they break community guidelines? (In Zoom, unfortunately you cannot delete messages once they have been posted in the chat, but you can remove participants who have made harmful comments to prevent them from continuing to do so.) Look into how you can monitor and moderate the chat to guide a positive, safe conversation, and ensure you have someone on your team assigned to this role who feels comfortable and prepared to do so.
For more on creating safer spaces, including facilitation, intervention and community guidelines, go here.
Test, test, test
No matter which platform you choose, get to know how it works in advance, so that you and your team are comfortable and confident when the time comes for you and your participants to use it.
Test all the features that you will be using during your event, and familiarize yourself with how it works and what you will see both from the back end (i.e., from your perspective as the event host) and from the front end (i.e., from the perspective of the audience). As discussed above, test how the platform works on different devices. If you have guest speakers, consider what their experience will be on the platform and what they will need to know to use it.
Ensure you can provide clear and accurate instructions for participants on how to use important functions (e.g., how to mute and unmute, how to turn on closed captioning).
Zoom-specific support
We regularly use Zoom for our programming, and it offers many support pages to help you troubleshoot problems.
When in doubt, we advise people having issues with Zoom to:
- Leave and rejoin the meeting—this can resolve technical issues such as not being able to see or hear others
- Update the Zoom app
- Restart their computer
[Insert this gif: https://images.app.goo.gl/kPJaquBf7pMq16Qi6]
Resource
When choosing a location for an in-person event, consider how different groups may access and interact with the venue. Some things to consider include:
Transportation
- Is the venue accessible by public transportation?
- Are there bike racks for cyclists?
- Is there parking, and if so, what does it cost and is it close to the venue?
- Is the venue in a convenient, safe and comfortable location for your intended audience (e.g., if the goal of your event is to engage people in a particular neighbourhood about issues of community concern, you will most likely want to hold your event in that neighbourhood)?
- Do you need to put up clear signage near and/or within the venue to indicate where the event is being held (e.g., a specific room in a multi-floor building)?
Physical barriers
- Are there barriers (e.g., stairs, narrow doorways, no elevators or ramps) that could make it difficult for people with canes, crutches, wheelchairs or other mobility aids?
- If so, how can you work around those barriers and communicate that out to attendees?
Washrooms
- Are there adequate gender-neutral and wheelchair-accessible washrooms?
- Are there spaces to breastfeed and change children?
- Are they labelled and easy to access?
- If not, how can you address and communicate this (e.g., asking the venue for permission to put up signage, and letting participants know in advance whether and where these spaces will be available)?
Seating and space
- How many people can the space accommodate?
- Will the seating and room design inhibit attendees’ ability to engage comfortably?
- Can people with all body sizes use the seats comfortably?
- If we need to reserve seats for people with access needs, where are they placed and can people hear and see from them well?
- Is there quiet space or multi-faith space for religious observance?
- If your event includes a Q&A or other participatory component, will attendees have to walk up to a mic or will you have a team member passing around a mic in the seats?
- If you will be displaying slides or other media on a screen, how does this look in the space? Are they easy for everyone to see/read?
Sound and lighting
- Try to choose a venue that limits external noise (e.g., construction, street noise) to make it easier for all attendees to hear.
- Be sure that the lighting is appropriate for the event, whether that means the ability to increase lighting for legibility of print materials, or lower lighting for screen visibility.
COVID-19 considerations
Although we have returned to hosting in-person events as COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, our planning process looks different from how it did pre-pandemic. We take into account current public health guidelines, community comfort levels, and everything we have learned about accessibility during our pivot to online events. Some important things we now consider in choosing a location for our in-person events include:
- Venue capacity, taking into account current COVID-19 event capacity restrictions and/or the comfort level of participants, guest speakers, etc.
- Suitability of the venue for a hybrid (livestreamed) set-up, so people who are unable to attend in person can attend online
- Ventilation
- Access to Wi-Fi
- Ways to make closed captioning and/or ASL interpretation available for an in-person audience (e.g., providing a link or a QR code for people to access closed captioning on their mobile device, in which case they may need Wi-Fi access)
- Staff/volunteer capacity—an in-person event will often require more roles than an online event (check-in/registration, speaker coordination, etc.)
More accessibility considerations for in-person venues can be found in the "Food and catering" and "Travel" sections of this guide.
Hybrid events provide options for people to participate either in-person or online. Because of this, they are generally more accessible to more people than online-only or in-person-only events, as they accommodate varying preferences for how to participate.
However, the hybrid model may not necessarily be the best fit for your event. Because they incorporate elements of planning both in-person and online and events, they can place extra strain on the capacity of your team and anyone else involved in planning and organizing.
Think about the kind of interaction you want between your in-person guests and online guests. If your goal is interactive engagement, you can expect to need a larger team and more resources to make this a possibility.
Here are a couple common models for hybrid events:
- An event taking place in person as well as being streamed online. The online stream is passive, for viewership only.
- An event taking place in person as well as being streamed online. The online stream is active, with audience interaction such as Q&A, chat or polls.
Some important considerations when thinking about a hybrid event, in addition to those described previously for online and in-person events, are:
- Technology and platform choice
- Camera angles and microphones
- Lighting and acoustics—will people both online and in-person be able to hear and see well?
- Will the in-person audience need to hear audio from speakers or participants joining online? (sharing an audio feed from online to in-person can often be a challenge)
- What do slides/screens look like both in-person and online?
- Team roles: you will need people assigned to manage in-person elements of the event (e.g., guest check-in, in-person speaker coordination), online elements (e.g., monitoring the chat), and both (e.g., making sure that online audiences are seeing and hearing what the in-person audience is)
- Make sure that whoever is acting as moderator or host understands the interplay between both the in-person audience and the online audience. They’ll need to be able to address both audiences and let them know how to engage (e.g., during a Q&A session). They should be briefed on the agenda and provided with housekeeping notes to make sure that all relevant information for all audiences is covered.
- Audience participation: How will in-person and online audiences each be able to participate, e.g., in a Q&A session? We have used Slido as a way to take questions from both an online and in-person audience in one shared space to not privilege the participation of one audience over another. As we program more hybrid events, we will experiment with more engagement methods to bridge the gap between online and in-person audiences.