London. European event professionals will gather Sept. 9, 2011 at Down Hall near London, England to experiment and learn about innovative event formats and hybrid event techniques at the first ever Event Camp Europe (ECEU).
“We’re going to be exploring ways that events can reach out to wider audiences online as well as new methods for improving onsite attendee engagement, learning and networking,” explained Co-Organizer Lindsey Rosenthal.
On the technology side, Event Camp Europe will focus on hybrid events; events that seek to combine an onsite experience with an online one.
“Hybrid events are still quite new but we’ve come a long way in a short amount of time,” noted Co-Organizer Ruud Janssen. “The most successful hybrid event organizers have learned that it’s not enough to merely live-stream video of your event online. There are excellent ways to engage a remote audience that actually enhance the onsite experience as well.”
More and more conferences provide at least some access to remote attendees. Many are finding that, far from cannibalizing the on-site event, remote attendee engagement builds on-site attendance at subsequent events. “It’s really remarkable how effective live-streaming is as a marketing tool,” added Janssen.
Hybrid events aren’t the only new format that Event Camp Europe will explore. Audience centric conferences have been growing in number over the last few years and Event Camp Europe hopes to give participants an idea why.
“The audience-centric conference was born from the frustration of internet technology enthusiasts who had little patience for sitting passively at traditional conferences listening to speaker after speaker,” Co-Organizer Jenise Fryatt explained. “They recognized that a great store of knowledge was going untapped in the audience. So they created conference formats that allow participants to connect and learn from whoever attends.”
Event Camp Europe will embrace an international audience both online and via remote international PODs. A POD is a group of people who have agreed to meet at a location other than the event site, to interact with the event via video communication such as Skype. A limited number of PODs will be hosted and interested parties can contact us via the website www.eventcamp.eu
Both remote and on-site participants will receive practical guidance in the application of these new techniques while experiencing first hand what it’s like to be an attendee at such an event.
