4 Tips For Planning A Successful Corporate Event

planning corporate events

Planning a successful corporate event is a great responsibility that requires plenty of preparation. Corporate events range from conferences, trade shows and conventions to award ceremonies, networking, team building events and more. Whether you’re hosting a large incentive reward retreat or an exclusive company gathering, here are 4 great tips that will help you succeed in planning any corporate event!

Choose A Fun Theme

In the early stages of planning your corporate event, it is important to select a unique theme that will reflect your brand and resonate with your guests. 

Select a theme based around your event objective and make it memorable by incorporating creative decor, pops of color, festive food and drinks, and of course your logos and branding. 

If you’re hosting a corporate party or team building event, consider a Casino Night or a Western Barnyard BBQ!

planning corporate events

Pick A Great Location 

In addition to themes and decor, another important element in planning your corporate event is choosing the perfect location! 

Phoenix is home to some incredible event venues including a wide variety of large resorts, the Phoenix Convention Center and smaller spaces for exclusive corporate gatherings.   

When choosing a location or booking a venue for your event, a few important factors to consider are size/space, budget, and convenience. Ideally, the location should be easily accessible to your guests, which will help promote a strong turnout.  

Be sure to take advantage of the seasons! If weather permits, outdoor events are always a guest favorite and give you endless possibilities for activities (not to mention offer beautiful views for your event backdrop)!

planning corporate events

Include Interactive Entertainment and Activities 

Whatever theme and location you decide on, make sure to also include interactive entertainment and activities to keep your guests engaged! Choosing the right type of entertainment will help ensure your event is successful and memorable. 

Live music is always a great way to attract your audience and you can also wow your crowd with different performances from comedians, magicians, artists, and more!

Trade show exhibits are a great opportunity to show off your products while interacting with your guests. During conferences and conventions, include breakout sessions and hands-on workshops that focus on audience participation. You can even turn a corporate meeting into your own game show – the possibilities are endless when it comes to corporate event planning!

planning corporate events

Promote Your Event

After putting together the perfect plan with a unique theme, location, entertainment and activities, it is time to spread the word and promote your event! 

Getting the word out to your guests early in advance and sharing the details online is important to ensure a strong event turnout. 

To promote your event, send your entire contact database a custom newsletter or e-blast with the event invitation and details. Also share it on your blog, website, and social media channels. You can even create a Facebook page or a custom landing page on your website for event promotion!

Whatever platform you use to reach your target audience, make sure your communication is clear and includes all of the important event information, plus a few sneak peek details to get everyone excited about what’s to come. 

Planning and executing a corporate event is no easy task but keeping these 4 tips in mind during your preparation will help you host a successful and memorable corporate event!

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Women’s History Month

Since 1987, March has been nationally recognized as Women’s History Month, dedicated to honoring and celebrating the many contributions women have made in society and their achievements throughout American history. This Monday, March 8th will celebrate International Women’s Day, in observance to raise awareness about women’s equality and commemorate all those who have fought for women’s rights.

At Haute Media we are honoring empowering women everywhere all month long! We have been fortunate to work with several incredible organizations supporting women and we want to highlight a few of the extraordinary females we have had the pleasure of photographing over the years.

Madeleine Albright

“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” — Madeleine K. Albright

Madeleine Albright served as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States and was America’s first woman Secretary of State. During her time in office, she was then the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. Dr. Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2012 and is now Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a New York Times bestselling author, professor, diplomat and businesswoman. We’ve had the amazing opportunity to photograph Dr. Albright at multiple events including her book singing and press conference at the Phoenix Art Museum as well as a special meet and greet during the AIG Annual Conference at The Phoenician Resort.

Caroline Kennedy

“As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency.” — Caroline Kennedy

American author, attorney, and diplomat, Caroline Kennedy served as the United States Ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. Daughter of former President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy serves as a member of the National Board of Directors for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Vice Chair for the Fund for Public Schools in NYC, and Chief Executive for the NYC Department of Education Office of Strategic Partnerships. We were honored to photograph Ambassador Kennedy at the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute Annual History Dinner honoring President John F. Kennedy.

Maria Shriver

“Moving humanity forward. That is my ministry. That is my mission. I hope you will join me.” — Maria Shriver

Journalist, activist, author, former First Lady of California, and founder of the nonprofit organization The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, Maria Shriver is an inspiration to women everywhere. Shriver also created The Minerva Awards and Minerva Prize to recognize and reward remarkable women making a difference in the world. It was our honor to photograph Maria Shriver at the Arizona Foundation For Women Annual Luncheon.

Phoenix Art Museum Independent Woman Luncheon

The Phoenix Art Museum Independent Woman Luncheon has become one of the most beloved events in the premier design community and we are honored to have partnered with them for the past ten years to photograph this incredible event! Last year’s event celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Independent Woman Luncheon and honored Ellen Katz, who founded and chaired the Independent Woman Luncheon in 2011. After the construction of the Museum’s Ellen and Howard C. Katz Wing for Modern Art in 2006, Katz served as chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2010, and also created and chaired the Museum’s annual pARTy gala. The two fundraisers founded by Katz have raised millions of dollars benefitting Phoenix Art Museum.

These extraordinary women have accomplished remarkable achievements and have supported our society for decades. Visit HautePhotoVideo.com to view more photos of these incredible women and be sure to follow us as we’ll be sharing photos of empowering women all month long! Remember to celebrate your favorite females this Monday on IWD and everyday!

5 Valley Venues For Your Live Virtual & Hybrid Events

Venues are an important part of your whole event experience, whether you’re live on location or hosting a virtual or hybrid event. As we continue to pivot toward virtual and hybrid events, it is even more critical to embrace visual elements and consider how the overall design will affect your audience. Setting the right stage for your virtual or in-person speakers and creating the perfect atmosphere for your guests is key in planning any successful event, and it all starts with choosing the right venue to bring your vision to life! Here are five venues throughout the valley that are perfect for live, virtual, and hybrid events…

The Barn at Power Ranch

Located in the Power Ranch Community in Gilbert, AZ, The Barn at Power Ranch is a versatile event venue offering intimate indoor space and a beautiful outdoor area with a farm-like wild west atmosphere perfect for any valley event!

The Power Ranch Community Association hosted a special ribbon cutting ceremony last week to celebrate the grand re-opening of The Barn and we were thrilled to be a part of the excitement! We can’t wait to capture many more events at this gorgeous venue!

Desert Foothills

For over 30 years, Desert Foothills has provided an exclusive event space with indoor and outdoor areas for private special events including weddings and rehearsal dinners, celebrations, corporate dinners, awards, team building events and more! Located in North Scottsdale, Desert Foothills offers a 10,000 square foot barn with high ceilings and a sunset patio with a viewing area to watch the sun set over the desert landscape. The rustic decor and beautiful Sonoran Desert backdrop provides an authentic western setting that your guests will love! 

Brighthouse Financial held their National Sales Meeting here in Phoenix last year and celebrated their final dinner event at Desert Foothills where there was plenty of entertainment and activities, including pig races and a hot air balloon!

G Collection

If you’re looking for a new and totally unique entertainment venue for your next event, G Collection is the place! Located in Scottsdale, AZ this vintage venue showcases a world-class classic automobile collection and rare collectible antiques that will surely impress your guests! Antiquities range from ancient bronze swords and Roman glass to Chinese sculpture and Greek vessels dating back thousands of years. The cars on display are some of the rarest cars in history. Not to mention, they house a private game room as well as a bar-top lounge with a full DJ booth!

Jokake Inn at The Phoenician Resort

We capture some of our favorite events at The Phoenician Resort and Jokake Inn, located just inside the resort, is the perfect space for a corporate dinner event and evening entertainment! With an outdoor stage in the center of the courtyard, your guests can converse over dinner and cocktails while enjoying live music. Dress up your event with some gorgeous decor that go great with the southwest setting Jokake provides.

Scottsdale Hangar One

Since 2003, this one-of-a-kind private jet hangar complex has offered world-class designs and amenities perfect for corporate events, meetings, dinners, awards, galas and much more! Scottsdale Hangar One is a rare and innovative venue located in the Scottsdale Airpark and offers unique spaces like the Red Room which houses a showroom for an exclusive car collection, but can be transformed into any style event space! Post Integrations has hosted their annual corporate holiday party at Scottsdale Hangar One and the Red Room was the perfect atmosphere to bring their Christmas winter wonderland vision to life!

A few of our other favorite valley venues include:

  • Wrigley Mansion
  • La Puesta Del Sol
  • Corona Ranch
  • Troon North
  • The Farm at South Mountain

Contact us at hautephotovideo.com for your next corporate or community event, we know all the best locations and venues in the valley. Plus, we have highly-experienced photographers and videographers ready to capture every detail of your event and we also offer professional event production on location and for your remote virtual event needs!

What You Need To Know About Hybrid Events

As new event technology has emerged during the pandemic, you may be asking yourself — what is the difference between live, virtual, and hybrid events?

During a Live event, your attendees are all physically in attendance as opposed to a Virtual event where your guests view the entire event online. Hybrid events are what we like to call the happy medium, where some people attend in person while others watch online.

As more companies contemplate hosting a virtual event versus a physical gathering, now is the time to explore the benefits of choosing a hybrid model. Even as the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more readily available and live events start to make their comeback, hybrid events offer several benefits and will likely continue to play a huge part in the future events industry.

The Heard Museum hosted a beautiful hybrid gala event in celebration of their “Once in a Blue Moon” campaign, broadcasted live from the Museum’s brand new Blue Moon Garden! We captured the below photo of Campaign Committee Chairs, John and Janet Melamed after the Garden unveiling.

If you’re an event professional or business owner, there are a few key things to know when it comes to pulling off hybrid events.

Hybrid events combine both live and virtual event elements to create a unique, engaging and safety-conscious experience while providing greater flexibility for your audience.

Even before virtual events became the new normal, there were always people who would have loved to attend your event but couldn’t for one reason or another, travel being one of the bigger factors. By incorporating an online virtual component, hybrid events allow you to increase your overall reach and actually gain more attendees, ensuring that no one misses out on your amazing event.

Broadcasting your live event via a virtual platform opens many doors by giving you the chance to connect with a larger audience than could ever be possible in person. A virtual audience is able to actively participate in your live event from their mobile devices or desktop computer in real time. They can be anywhere in the world and still attend and most importantly engage in your event.

The virtual engagement tools you can incorporate in your hybrid events include live polls, Q&A sessions, and real-time audience chat for remote participants.

Let’s say your guests attending in-person are having a Q&A session with a speaker live on location, your online attendees can be viewing virtually and still participate by commenting directly via the live chat box. You can also host polls during your event that include both your live and online audience. This allows for even greater networking opportunities for your live and virtual attendees.

It is also important to include entertainment on location that both your live audience and virtual viewers can enjoy!

A few of our favorite entertainment elements include live bands and musicians, performers and entertainers such as magicians, artists, celebrity impersonators, and if you’re looking to really liven things up karaoke!

Heard Museum incorporated live music in their hybrid event and it is always a lovely added element to entertain your guests.

Another awesome benefit of hosting hybrid events is the ability to rewatch and share the livestream with your guests who may not have been able to attend or who simply want to relive the magic!

You can embed your entire event livestream on your website or even pull out certain clips to share on your social media channels. Plus, you can repurpose and share content from your livestream to market your business and promote future events. Having the recorded copy of your event also allows your speakers and sponsors who were a part of the stream to rewatch and see the live audience comments and interaction unfold throughout their presentations.

Check out this livestream recording below from the Feeding Matters virtual fundraising event and see how they incorporated a live audience chat for all of their attendees to interact in real-time.

You can view more videos at HautePhotoVideo.com and be sure to contact us when you’re planning your next hybrid event!

How To Enhance Your Culinary Event Experience 

Whether you’re hosting an in-person or virtual culinary event, it is important to create an interactive, engaging and memorable experience for your audience. From cooking lessons and recipe competitions to food festivals and wine tastings, the possibilities for creative culinary events are endless! Continue reading for our best ideas to enhance your next culinary event experience…

Feature World-Class Celebrity Chefs

Hosting a celebrity chef at your culinary event is guaranteed to build excitement and credibility among your viewers! Check out the photos below from some awesome events we’ve captured over the years featuring some of our favorite famous chefs.

The Arizona Harvest Moon Dinner Event is a unique outdoor dining experience under a full moon in the heart of the City hosted on the PHX Renews Property, featuring top local chefs and AZ Careers Through Culinary Arts (C-CAP) Alumni.

Shown in the top left photo above (left to right) is Arizona Cardinals superstar Larry Fitzgerald; Host of PBS Plate & Pour, Iron Chef America Winner and Owner of Biltmore-area restaurant Tarbell’s Chef Mark Tarbell; and Renowned Food Network celebrity chef and Sanctuary’s Executive Chef Beau McMillan (Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain).

Chef Tarbell can also be seen photographed in the bottom right photo above with celebrity chef and cookbook author, Rocco DiSpirito at the 2017 Arizona Women’s Board Author’s Luncheon.

A few other celebrity chefs we’ve had the incredible opportunity of photographing include:

Celebrity Chef Anne Burrell with former Miami Dolphins quarterback, Dan Marino (top right photo above) at the 2015 PepCity Super Bowl Halftime Party in Glendale, AZ.

Food Network star and best-selling cookbook author, Giada DeLaurentiis (bottom left photo above) at her “Weeknights with Giada” book signing in Scottsdale, AZ at Sur La Table in Kierland Commons.

Bravo’s Top Chef Masters Winner, cookbook author and Mexico–One Plate at a Time television series star Chef Rick Bayless (right middle photo above) in Phoenix, AZ at a Tasting Event for Negra Modelo.

Support Local Restaurants and Chefs 

Phoenix is home to some of the best local restaurants, food festivals and culinary events in Arizona. We love working with our AZ culinary geniuses and supporting local chefs and restaurants is a great way to relate with your audience while promoting the Valley’s amazing culinary scene!

Beckett’s Table opened in 2010 in the heart of Phoenix and has won the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence for the past six years. We’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Chef Justin Beckett (top left above) and his team to photograph several special occasions over the years including the Lincoln Drive and Dine event hosted at Beckett’s Table!

Other local chefs we’ve had the fortune of working with include: 

Chef Christopher Gross of Christopher’s at the Wrigley Mansion (bottom left); Chef Scott Conant of Mora Italian in Phoenix (bottom right); and beloved iconic Phoenix Chef Tomaso Maggiore of Tomaso’s on Camelback (top right, In Loving Memory of Tomaso Maggiore). Tomaso was an amazing person and will be missed dearly. Voted Best Italian Restaurant in the Valley since 1977, you can visit Tomaso’s in the Camelback Corridor in Central Phoenix.

Include Audience Interaction

A great way to enhance your next culinary event is to include audience interaction! You can demonstrate cooking lessons at your live events or during virtual broadcasts. 

We teamed up with Macy’s Culinary Council to photograph their Game Day Cooking event in Scottsdale with three time James Beard award winning Chef Tom Douglas. The audience loved the live interaction and opportunity for discussion during this cooking demonstration! 

Another awesome local restaurant we’ve worked with is Rock Lobster located in Chandler, AZ where guests enjoy Teppanyaki style cuisine and freshly prepared Sushi. This is the kind of culinary entertainment that will leave your guests wanting more!

You can view more of our Culinary Event Photography at HautePhotoVideo.com and contact us when you’re planning your next live culinary event or virtual experience! 

4 Socially Distant Outdoor Team Building Activities

As the Phoenix weather starts to warm up over the next few weeks, it’s the perfect time to start planning an outdoor company team building activity!

Team-building activities offer fun and creative alternatives to build camaraderie and trust among your employees. Building company morale and strengthening relationships has never been more important. With the past year we have faced, it is important to remind your employees that you are a team and are stronger and more resilient because of each other.

Getting outdoors and engaging in some positive adventurous activity is a great way to kick off the new year and there are several activities you can participate in this season to enjoy the great outdoors with your team while staying safe and socially distant.

From horseback riding to ATV tours through the desert, Arizona is the perfect location for outdoor fun and now is a great time to get out and explore with your team! Here are some of our favorite socially distant outdoor team building activities your employees are guaranteed to enjoy…

ATV Tours

If you’re looking for a unique off-roading experience, schedule an ATV Tour! Arizona ATV Adventures offers custom guided tours in Phoenix, Sedona, and Tucson, AZ. Your employees will have the chance to drive their own ATV while viewing beautiful scenery all over Arizona!

Hiking and Mountain Climbing

Our beautiful Grand Canyon State is home of some of the most incredible hiking trails in the nation. Whether your choose a short and easy hike or a more strenuous climbing trail, hiking in Arizona is always a magical experience.

Horseback Riding

Take your team on an authentic horseback ride through the desert and mountains! Cave Creek Trail Rides offer guided tours while sharing stories of the old west and historic mining town and Arizona Horseback Adventures at Spur Cross offers sunset rides through the Sonoran Desert.

Golfing

If you’re looking for something a bit more leisurely, golfing is a great option and there are tons of golf courses across the valley to choose from! The Arizona Biltmore Golf Club, Grayhawk Golf Club, and Troon North Golf Club are a few of our client favorites.

More outdoor team building activities to consider:

  • Tennis
  • Archery
  • Fishing
  • Segway Tours
  • Yoga
  • Biking
  • Kayaking

Make sure to review the safety precautions and guidelines for each activity on the company websites.

View more of our team building inspiration at hautephotovideo.com and contact us to capture your next team building excursion!

3 Reasons To Invest In Professional Photography For Your Business

Professional photography is a marketing must-have behind any successful business. You’re probably familiar with the phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words, so the question to ask yourself is — what do you want your picture to say about you and your business?

Utilizing professional photography gives you the power to personalize your image and promote your business and brand across all major marketing platforms, and when it comes to commercial photography, hiring a professional is the way to go! Whether you sell products online, provide services on location, own a restaurant or work in retail, your business will flourish with professional photographs. Continue reading for three key reasons why you should invest in professional photography for your business.

1. Establish and Enhance Your Business Branding

How do you want consumers and potential clients to remember you after visiting your website or social media channels?

Professional photography helps you establish and maintain your brand identity. Visually appealing images will make your brand more memorable and recognizable.

Build trust and credibility among your audience by showing them who you are and what you have to offer. Staff headshots, product shots, photos of your team at work, interior and exteriors images of your locations, and behind-the-scenes photos will promote your business and boost your brand recognition.

Big O Tires utilized professional photos to highlight their locations and staff and build their brand awareness.

2. Stand Out From Your Competition

According to Statista in 2020, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide. Needless to say, your online presence sends a powerful message and gives you the chance to reach a broader audience.

Professional photography will ensure you stand out from your competition and make a great first impression among your viewers.

Professional photographers have the skills and experience to know how to capture your subjects using the best angles and lighting techniques. Not to mention, when using professional grade equipment and full frame DSLR cameras compared to the built-in camera on your smartphone, the quality is incomparable.

The quality of your images will reflect on the quality of your products. Stand out from the many businesses using stock photography by hiring a professional to make your images real and personal.

We had the pleasure of working with Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams to photograph their store interior and exterior, staff photos and grand opening event. Photos like these help personalize your online presence and make you stand out from the rest!

3. Increase Engagement and Drive Success

Images can help you get discovered on the web and increase traffic to your site. High quality photos immediately grab attention and help you attract more viewers which in turn increases engagement and leads to more prospects.

Professional photography also helps strengthen your SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. If you optimize your images using “alt texts” Google and other search engines crawling your pages will deem your content more relevant and bump you up to the top of search pages.

More clicks equals more traffic on your website and what is a great way to get more clicks? With visually stunning imagery that makes your viewers want to see more, just like this awesome photo of the Prada Scottsdale location!

Invest in yourself and in your image by taking your business and your brand to the next level with professional photography!

Hiring a pro will make the process simple, easy, and fun! Contact us at HautePhotoVideo.com to learn more about our photography services, we would love to work with you!

How Current Business Owners Are Utilizing Video Marketing

Video is a smart investment for any business owner. Forbes found that 81 percent of total businesses use video marketing and according to HubSpot, including video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%! Customers are automatically intrigued when visiting a webpage containing engaging video content. Video is eye-catching and makes your viewers only want to see more and learn more about what you have to offer.

If you choose to make the smart investment of utilizing video in your marketing efforts, you should also make the wise decision to hire a professional videography team to handle all of the details for you from the early stages of pre-production planning to the final phases of post-production editing.

When working on a new video project, the first step is to identify your main goal of the video. What message do you want to tell? Are you informing your viewers about a particular service or sharing a personal testimonial to relate with your audience?

There are several ways to utilize video marketing to connect your audience. Here are three examples of how current business owners are using video to tell their story, promote their brand, and market their services.

Promote Products and Services

If you are introducing a new product or want to highlight your company services, video is the way to go! We had the pleasure of working with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to create this awesome video promoting their recent United States Marine Corps Arizona License Plate Campaign.

View the full video below and see how their subjects used props and the set location to help promote their message and resonate with their viewers. They chose for us to shoot this video in front of the Marine Corps mural at the Scottsdale Civic Center Library to fit with the theme of their campaign and create a beautiful scene that many Phoenix Natives will recognize and appreciate.

Convey Information

If you have something to tell your customers or even your employees, do it through video! Video is an easy and effective way to convey a message to your target audience. Check out this video we produced for Phoenix Realtors. They wanted to show off their new office space and tell their members about all of the new benefits they’d have access to. So we created a virtual tour of their new space and used a voiceover to highlight all of the key features!

Boost Brand Awareness

Boosting your brand awareness should play a key role in your marketing campaigns. Presenting videos to your clients and potential customers through your social media channels and online platforms helps show them who you are before they even meet you. Video is a powerful marketing tool and gives you the opportunity to be seen across multiple mediums.

Business Owner, Brad Leavitt is President of A Finer Touch Construction and tells his company story in this awesome branding video below. Sharing footage of your locations, services, and staff (even Behind-The-Scenes) is a great way to put yourself out there and build your brand awareness!

Video is a compelling way for businesses to connect with their customers and data has proven that video marketing is successful. When you’re planning your next video project, contact us at HautePhotoVideo.com and we will help bring your vision to life!

Learn How Ferguson HVAC is Utilizing Video to Enhance their Virtual Event

Ferguson HVAC, an industry leading distributor in wholesale heating and cooling supplies, is hosting their Third Annual Day & Night Elite Dealer Meeting next week on Wednesday, January 13th, 2021 from 8am-11am PST and for the first time ever, the event will be entirely virtual! This year’s virtual event, appropriately themed Turning to Technology, will explore all the ways modern technology can grow your business in today’s ever-changing world.

Much like the HVAC industry is constantly evolving, so is video and virtual technology! In a world where video dominates the internet, social media, and business marketing, it is crucial to understand how to utilize video content in order to enhance your brand and connect with your target audience. Video is attention grabbing and memorable and not only is it a great way to entertain, educate, and engage with your viewers, utilizing video drives action.

Ferguson is always one step ahead of the game and for their 2021 virtual dealer meeting, they are utilizing video content to engage their viewers, educate them on what’s to come in 2021, and excite them to return to their next live in-person event in 2022.

It was a blast working with this awesome group last year to capture photo and video coverage of the Second Annual Ferguson HVAC / Day & Night Elite Dealer Meeting at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nevada and we were thrilled to help them create their promo video for this year’s virtual meeting!

One of the biggest highlights from last year’s event included a meet & greet session with keynote speaker and U.S. Army Veteran, Noah Galloway. Incorporating footage from the 2020 event highlights and adding text, graphics, effects, etc. creates a compelling video that not only showcases their previous dealer meeting, it introduces the 2021 virtual meeting and is promoting the return to Vegas in 2022! You can view the full promo video at HauteVideography.com.

Check out all of the 2020 event photos at HautePhotoVideo.com and you can register for the 2021 virtual dealer meeting at Ferguson.com. Stay tuned for more to come in Las Vegas in 2022!

The Power of Video in Virtual Events

Video is an extremely powerful medium and plays an important role in marketing and executing your virtual events. Utilizing live video creates a personal connection between the presentation, host and audience, giving you the ability to address your viewers directly, who can each respond in return. Producing video content where the host or presenter looks directly into the camera creates a conversational experience for your viewers, providing greater engagement and participation.

Our Haute Media President, Darrylee Cohen, shared some great advice on The Nonprofit Show yesterday morning about the power of using video in virtual events, specifically for non-profit organizations. Darrylee and The Nonprofit Show host, Julia C. Patrick of the American Nonprofit Academy, discussed 4 key topics when utilizing video – continue reading for all of our best advice and watch the live show recording at the link below!

Live Interaction During A Virtual Event

Virtual events offer several ways to interact with a live audience, including live polls, chat windows, live Q&A, breakout sessions and more! Utilizing the live chat feature is a great way to let your audience connect and easily communicate with each other in real time, something that is not as easy to accomplish in-person. With the live chat box, your viewers are able to interact in one place no matter where they are tuning in from, even if they are as far as Hong Kong. Breakout “rooms” and Q&A sessions provide a feeling of intimacy and exclusivity during your virtual events, allowing your attendees to engage with their peers or even talk with the host directly and ask questions.

Getting the Right Background or Studio Set Up 

When it comes to speaking to an audience on camera versus in real life, it is best to treat it just as if it were an in person event! Setting the right background is key to enhance your story or theme, whatever it may be. Using professional lighting, audio, and cameras will make you look, sound, and feel your best!

Feeding Matters is a wonderful example, they chose a kitchen environment for their virtual event background to connect with the theme of their event and help tell their story. It created an intimate connection between the speaker and audience and was perfectly fitting!

Communicating on Camera vs In-Real-Life

Communicating virtually versus in real life allows you to reach a much wider audience and gives you the option to stream your events across multiple mediums. Virtual events can be live-streamed to various platforms and embedded on your website, social media channels, etc. allowing your audience to view from anywhere in the world. Virtual events are mobile friendly, so your viewers can tune in from the comfort of their own homes or they can watch on the go using their smart phone or tablet.

Production Costs and Timeframes

With virtual event production, (versus in-person event production) you can save money on venue costs, vendors, etc. but utilizing technology platforms and preparing for a virtual event still requires a significant investment and time. Production costs and timeframes always vary based on the specifics of the project but some common costs for virtual event production include pre-recording speakers, editing presentations and video content, designing themes and transitions, renting or building out a stage or studio environment to create the perfect background, conducting rehearsals and technical checks with your remote participants, etc. Planning ahead is key and keeping your virtual event relevant and timely for your viewers is a top priority, as with any live event! Your virtual event doesn’t need to be lengthy as long as it tells your story while keeping your audience engaged.

The creativity is endless when it comes to utilizing video in virtual events. You can create an entirely unique online experience with stages and backgrounds, speakers and entertainers, real-time worldwide networking, and more! An added bonus is longevity! With video, you are able to create multiple pieces of content from one recording; so you can use your live virtual event recording for various marketing purposes over extended periods of time. Video is a creative solution that will help strengthen your virtual events and hiring a professional to provide a seamless stress-free structure and manage any in-moment technical difficulties is a choice you won’t regret!

Contact us at HautePhotoVideo.com to learn more about our videography services and virtual event production!