Hybrid events: how to make remote attendees feel present

A hybrid event brings people together in a room and online at the same time. The difficulty is that the two groups have very different experiences. People in the room see faces, hear side remarks and chat over coffee. People online see a slide, hear whatever the microphones catch and type into a chat box that nobody may be reading.

The aim of a good hybrid conference is not to make the online experience identical, which is impossible, but to make sure virtual attendees can follow, contribute and be heard. That depends far more on planning, roles and sound than on expensive technology. A livestream that people simply watch is a broadcast; a hybrid event invites them in.

The single most useful decision is to name a separate online facilitator. The Turing Way, a community handbook on research collaboration, notes that it is incredibly difficult for the same person to act as both the in-person and the online facilitator.¹ The online facilitator supports engagement, moderates the conversation and runs online Q&A and polls.¹ A guide to hybrid conferencing from the University of St Andrews adds that it often helps for the online chair to be physically present at the venue, and that an organiser should be available to online participants during breaks.²

Brief every session chair too. Chairs should receive instructions on how to include both types of participants.¹ Guidance from the University of Bristol suggests assigning a colleague to watch the online raise-hand and chat functions, so that remote contributions are not missed.³

Remote attendees experience the event almost entirely through its audio. Make sure everyone in the room uses a microphone when speaking, and ask speakers to introduce themselves so people online know who is talking.¹ The St Andrews guide recommends clip-on microphones for speakers and handheld microphones for audience questions, and two screens in the room: one for the presentation and one showing remote participants.²

The W3C advises that online and in-person participants should be able to see and hear each other, and that anything said by someone without a microphone should be repeated by someone with one.⁴ Book the room for a full rehearsal with the actual equipment and at least one remote tester.² In our own practice, the questions from the floor are where audio most often fails, so we test the roaming microphones as carefully as the stage.

Engagement is mostly about who gets to speak. The St Andrews guide recommends alternating between questions from the in-person and online audiences during Q&A.² Bristol's guidance goes further: invite virtual participants to contribute throughout, or ask for their comments first, rather than bringing them in only at the end.³ It also suggests applying a raise-hand rule to everyone, including those in the room, so the loudest voices in the room do not crowd out the platform.³

Use the chat actively. An online facilitator can post the name of each new speaker in the chat, and online note-takers can share links that speakers mention.¹ Polls, a shared document for questions and short online discussion slots all give remote attendees a reason to stay engaged rather than leaving a stream running in another tab.

The W3C note on the accessibility of remote meetings recommends providing captions, using a professional captioning service where possible and automated captions otherwise, and asking participants beforehand whether manual captioning is needed.⁴ In a hybrid setting, captions should be visible to both audiences at the same time, for example on a room display as well as on the platform.⁴ Where sign language interpretation is used, choose a platform that lets participants move and resize the interpreter's window independently of the slides.⁴

Share files directly, preferably in advance, rather than relying on screen sharing, which screen reader users cannot access.⁴ Offering more than one way to connect, such as a telephone dial-in, also increases access.⁴ This matters in places where connections are unreliable: the W3C also advises disabling online waiting rooms so that people who drop out can rejoin easily.⁴

A full day on a video platform is tiring. Stanford researcher Jeremy Bailenson has proposed four possible causes of video-call fatigue: intense close-up eye gaze, the extra effort of sending and reading non-verbal cues, constantly seeing yourself on screen and being unable to move around.⁵ He presents these as theoretical arguments that still need testing, but they are a useful reminder to plan shorter online blocks.⁵ Bristol's guidance says it is fine for online participants to keep cameras off when they are not speaking.³

Build in breaks for both audiences and share the timings with everyone, online and in the room.⁴ If participants join from different time zones, schedule several sessions or choose times that suit more than one region.¹ Recording sessions helps those who cannot attend live, but get explicit permission from presenters and anyone else who appears in the recording.²

Networking is the part remote attendees usually lose. The St Andrews guide suggests a shared session in breakout rooms, randomly matching in-person and online participants during at least one break, setting up chatting stations in the venue where people can join the online crowd, and sharing a participant list with short descriptions.² None of this needs special software, only a facilitator who treats the online audience as guests rather than viewers.

• A named online facilitator, separate from the session chair
• Microphones for every speaker and for questions from the floor
• A full rehearsal with a remote tester
• Q&A that alternates between the room and the platform
• Captions visible in the room and online
• Materials shared in advance and a phone dial-in option
• Breaks and timings shared with both audiences
• Written permission before recording speakers