How To Pivot To Virtual Events

While the most recent crowd size restrictions implemented by many state governors are understandable to slow the spread of the novel COVID-19, the result is an uncertain situation for many small businesses and nonprofit organizations who depend on spring fundraisers to meet their annual budgets. However, out of adversity comes innovation. And out of this current adversity came the need for production companies everywhere to re-invent themselves and start producing virtual events, especially if before they haven’t done. But just because you want to do something or everyone else is doing it somehow, it doesn’t mean you should not plan this pivot carefully and think of all the possible program and technical details that will have to go into producing an excellent virtual event.

With the knowledge in hands coming from successfully producing several pivots in the last few weeks in light of all the changes that have happened so fast around us, we want to provide you with an easy guide on how-to live stream your virtual event professionally and what are the things you should keep in mind as you’re trying to reassign your current AV team/partner to do video production and live streaming duties.

Cancelling an event can feel devastating, but if you do decide to cancel your event, we recommend that you send communications out to all your attendees, table hosts, sponsors, vendors, and volunteers as soon as possible. Your guests are expecting you to cancel and you want to leverage this moment to capture their interest and attention to log in and go virtual.

Before we get into it, we want to state that we are not Coronavirus experts. But we are fundraising and event production experts and our goal is to help you continue fundraising in light of restrictions being placed on gatherings during the COVID-19 outbreak, having taken the careful consideration and proper precautions to do it safely if you’re moving forward.

How to transform your in-person event into a virtual one

Decide on the event format first. Will it be a Virtual Event or will it be a Hybrid Event?

> With a Virtual Event, you might not see the same return as you had hoped from an in-person event but with enough marketing and excitement build around your upcoming virtual event as well as an engaged MC/speaker it will still allow you to fundraise. People will be able to login, watch, participate and donate towards your mission. A virtual event will allow you to share your program, fulfill your sponsorship benefits and raise money during the broadcast by doing an appeal. You can even build an online ‘silent’ auction, provide mobile bidding from providers such as Greater Giving to help turn your event into an online fundraising campaign.

> With a Hybrid Event, you will basically hold your regular event, down-scaled to a much smaller audience (keep up with your state’s recommendations and requirements as far as current crowd size restrictions) with the added element of a Virtual Live Event. Having a small audience to participate (either visually or audibly through a couple of boom mics set up in the room) in your virtual event live stream can create a lot of excitement that will translate to online engagement on the other side of the screen, and with engagement comes more shares, re-shares and views of your virtual event and fundraising power. This is a great option for event planners who would like to utilize the event venue and capture the in-room atmosphere and excitement of the live event while reaching a larger audience.

Here are some key recommendations for your virtual event (hybrid or not):

• Keep your program to 30 minutes or less (see below what a 30-minute format looks like)
• Run a social media challenge before and during the event to encourage people to share out photos and social media content to spread the word before and during your live virtual event
• Promote your auction packages in advance but close your online auction during the virtual event
• Incorporate a link to the fundraising site on the live streaming platform you choose to use
• Make the link to your stream accessible to everyone so that you can increase your online audience and for this, it’s practical to set up your stream page in advance so you can share the link prior to the date
• Have a chat monitor to monitor, reply to comments and drive engagement and excitement during the virtual event
• Have a technical team ready to answer any login technical issues that might occur
• Include in the broadcast videos of your speakers and all the video content or
• Create new content that is short and inspires and captivates an at-home audience that is easily distracted (if time allows)
• Create overlay/lower third graphics to include in the live feed and promote your sponsors & market your auction
• Do an appeal and drive people to a donate button on the same page with the live stream (or a link provided)
• Consider creative ways to also engage your vendors. Can table hosts gather small house viewing parties with catering being delivered to them? Can you Technical Event Producer share photos of the live feed for a look behind the scenes?
• If your speakers are no longer available in person but available and capable for a pre-event video-shoot, consider capturing them before the virtual event to build them into your virtual feed. Same applies for specific sponsors or honorees you might want to include in your live feed.
• Consider setting up pre-roll to run before your live virtual event stream starts, which could be an image, a slide with registration instructions or a countdown video. This will allow you a buffer in case things aren’t ready at the scheduled time of your event and it will allow extra time for viewers to tune in. Don’t make your audience wait too long though, engagement may dip if you leave your audience on the hook. The pre-roll can then be trimmed out of your video for when viewers come back to watch after the stream has ended.

According to Swaim Strategies, a team of nonprofit fundraising strategists, storytellers and advocates for the nonprofit sector, below is a 30-minute virtual fundraising event format they recommend you should be condensing your 2.5-3.5 hr gala down to:

• Pre-Cast instructions: Instructions how to register and login as a bidder
• Go Live: Welcome and introduce incentive to register as a bidder
• Promotion for online auction, begin bidding
• Organizational video
• Organizational speaker
• Continued promotion for online auction, check in on bids
• Appeal video
• Ask
• Donate now, accompany with a push via text to donate now
• Use the appeal board to recognize gifts as they come in
• Entertainment / honoree
• Close the auction