Best Hybrid or Virtual Event
CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition 2022
The CIPD’s audience of human resources (HR), learning and development and organisational design and development professionals face constant challenges in the ever-changing world of work. Our Annual Conference and Exhibition (ACE) is an essential date in the diary for our community to debate, share and learn to help businesses grow and make positive societal impact through work.
We’ve been innovating since our first hybrid ACE and took 2022 to a new level for our audience; people perfectly positioned to influence work and working lives for good. The hybrid format supported our accessibility goal to make content available to all customers.
We improved the functionality of the platform for Q&A, polling / surveys and introduced new features to ensure that delegates everywhere could engage with all areas of the show. We increased the number of virtual speakers and panellists which meant we were able to have more international speakers – this had been difficult historically, due to geographical barriers.
We introduced new formats which increase audience participation and encouraged shared learning. Customers reported that our event was “inspiring”, “insightful”, “informative” and “interesting”. Sponsors gave us excellent satisfaction ratings and exhibitors rebooked at our highest rate ever.
CloserStill Media, Women’s Health Professional Care
Women make up at least 50% of the UK population but it has taken a global pandemic to make people sit up and take notice of the serious healthcare inequalities which are entrenched in our healthcare system and affect girls and women throughout their lives.
Women’s Health Professional Care took place on 13-14 September 2022, and was launched as a free to attend, fully CPD accredited virtual conference, for healthcare professionals serious about reducing inequalities in healthcare services and treatment for women.
The focused conference programme included a celebrity speaker and covered a range of topics, from menopause, PCOS, fertility issues, endometriosis, contraception, cervical cancer, menstruation, and more. There were 16 expert led presentations and three sponsors.
The virtual event was a hit, with over 1,500 delegates attending, doubling its pre-event target, it also scored a 4.59 out of 5 average for all sessions, and staggering engagement with 6,533 session registrations, 3,799 messages exchanged, and 337 connections made.
Women’s Health Professional Care achieved everything the team behind the scenes hoped it would be and more, and it now has a huge potential to grow in future years too!
DRPG, Consumer Live 2022
We have a phenomenal client relationship with BT and have worked on its Consumer conference for many years. Consumer Live is a full end-to-end delivery by DRPG, which includes the logistics, registration, venue, comms, creative, event strategy, content production, technical production and on-site delivery managed and delivered by our teams.
We had to help build the story for one shared EE, BT and Plusnet future. This incorporated four main chapters and key messages which were, ‘our pride and purpose, our current reality, our fundamental opportunity and the journey we must take.’ With this in mind, we also had to ensure people attending, whether in-person or hybrid, felt supported and excited; we needed to immerse them and create a personal experience, have a strong rallying cry and call to action that brought everyone together, to unite the entire team and celebrate the best of the best.
emap Publishing, World Architecture Festival 2022
The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is the largest global gathering of architects where they congregate for 3 days to present their projects live for the chance to be awarded World Building of the Year. After postponing due to COVID, WAF pivoted to a virtual event for 2020 and 2021 editions, but in 2022 with most global restrictions lifted, planned to return WAF as a live event in Lisbon on 30 November – 2 December 2022. We knew we would face challenges returning to the live format, especially with China, one of our core markets, still in lockdown and there may be a reluctance from attendees to resume travel. How could we manage to attract Chinese entrants to enter if they were unlikely to be able to attend the live event for judging if shortlisted.
Using technology we managed to create an inclusive event through use of an event app for in-person and online delegates, with presentations online for our Chinese finalists that couldn’t attend. Through the app these delegates were also able to view keynotes and live finals, ensuring they weren’t excluded from participating.
Financial Times, Future of the Car Summit
The Future of the Car Summit is a must-attend, strategy-focused conference, where visionary OEMs, industry shakers, and challenger brands come together to examine the technology, consumer, and business model trends changing the way cars are made and sold.
Across 4 content-packed days, two of them in-person at The Brewery in London and live streaming, the summit welcomed over 1500 attendees, 118 speakers and generated over 1M in combined sponsorship and ticket sales. Delegates experienced an exciting introduction to a new hybrid format, participating in riveting live conversations, peer-to-peer roundtables, and unmissable networking.
First Event, Cardano Summit 2022
The first Cardano Foundation Summit smashed every target, creating it’s largest-ever in-person event.
With 31,700 attendees online and in person, the event needed to nurture connections in the community. And it certainly did that. With 51 Community events and watch parties on six continents, and online attendees from 78 countries, collaborations and networking were the name of the game.
Engagement was built in from the start, with the Cardano community suggesting speakers and content topics, then voting for award-winners for the first ever awards ceremony on Day 1.
The bespoke virtual world was a model of the real one, delivering a seamless hybrid experience. In-person networking opportunities were created by the opening night, awards ceremony and after-party, and online adaptable virtual avatars were able to start video chats and conversations with others.
A treasure hunt for NFT’s (highly-prized in this tech-savvy community) in person and online cemented the interactivity. And with content available on-demand to cater for time zones and subtitled in three different languages, everyone was included.
Foundry, CIO Summit UK
The Official CIO Summit UK is UK IT’s premier virtual event for peer-to-peer insight and ideas. The event ran from Tuesday 11th October to Thursday 13th October. It provided over 300+ IT leaders with the best opportunity to gain insight from their peers, benchmark their strategies and generate new ideas to implement into their businesses. This year, The Summit focused on how IT professionals are ’leading the change’ – moving IT at the speed of digital business and developing business acumen.
“The summit was exceptionally well organised, with a brilliant content diversity and engagement from participants. Communication before, during and after was fantastic and I really enjoyed both speaking and listening at the event. The overall platform is easy to use and makes attending so much easier. A great event, well done all on pulling together” – CIO Summit Speaker
Toucan, Ahead Together
A hybrid event including high quality film content, live experiences, virtual platform and multi-site global broadcast to empower GSK to harness a pivotal moment in their history; the largest demerger in history alongside the launch of a new brand driven by a purpose that put their people first. GSK wanted an event that brought the entire company together as one. Something much bigger, brighter and bolder than they had attempted before. Toucan created a hybrid experience to unite and inspire their whole global workforce, including a live satellite broadcast from five locations around the world, unique 3D platform and flagship London event, watching parties all over the world and hours of engaging content. As lead agency, Toucan created the content, and led and managed the entire production. An incredible 39,467 people took part, with 26,752 viewing online and 12,715 spread across 235 watching parties, making our event GSK’s largest ever global live broadcast and a step forward in building confidence and trust in GSK’s future.
Universities UK International, UK-Ukraine Twinning Conference
An event, turned around in ten days following a request from President Zelensky’s office, to celebrate tens of twinning partnerships between UK and Ukrainian universities – supporting Ukraine’s universities to continue their teaching and researching activities throughout war time – which drove 100 UK universities to twin, helped attract £5m of funding to supporting twinning, and was the catalyst to driving a 36% uplift in positive public perceptions towards UK universities.
