The Chartered Institute of Waste Management (CIWM) hosted its ‘Resourcing the Future Conference 2021’ from 20th to 21st January 2022. CIWM decided to run the conference as a hybrid event, with attendees able to attend virtually or in-person at One Great George Street in Westminster. The venue has a history of hosting hybrid events, making it an obvious choice to accommodate both sets of attendees.

Around 700 attendees participated in the two-day event, with 52 speakers providing industry case studies, panel debates, keynote speeches and interactive presentations. Decision makers from institutions like BP and L’Oréal offered expert knowledge alongside university professors and MPs.

CIWM was keen to facilitate as equal an experience for virtual and in-person attendees as possible. To achieve this, a number of key features were introduced to both the event’s mobile app and web platform, centred around networking, audience participation and exhibitor accessibility.

To encourage communication between physical and remote participants, All In The Loop created dedicated tabs which enabled messaging and meeting scheduling across both platforms. In combination with a comprehensive attendee list, which users could filter through to find relevant contacts, this ensured all attendees, in-person and virtual, could network and access each other’s information.

Similarly, to make sure both sets of attendees experienced ample exposure to exhibitors and sponsored content, a specific ‘Exhibitors & Sponsors’ tab was produced. This provided remote attendees with the chance to contact and attend video calls with exhibitors, as well as giving sponsors privileged placement within the platform for greater exposure. In-person attendees could also schedule meetings with exhibitors through the app, but would attend face-to-face meetings and visit physical stands.

Providing an equal experience for virtual and in-person attendees during speaker presentations would normally be a logistical problem, were it not for All In The Loop’s use of a Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) feed. Typical livestreams can experience up to a 30 second delay, making virtual audience participation impractical and frustrating. By working with the onsite AV team to set up an RTMP feed, All In The Loop was able to cut this delay down to just one second.

Furthermore, a shared Q&A function on both the app and web platform was introduced, affording questions from both cohorts of attendees an equal opportunity to be answered. Hence, All In The Loop was able to accommodate both sets of attendees, with speakers able to address questions in real-time, irrespective of location.

Given there were more than 16 separate items on the event agenda, CIWM required a solution to help attendees navigate the schedule and locate their desired sessions. To accomplish this, All In The Loop introduced a tag, filter and favouriting function. This meant that app and web users could sort events by a number of key tags, then mark their favourites and be notified when they were about to begin.

After the event, which was a great success, the client fed back that they were blown away by the sheer number of virtual attendees. By running a hybrid event, CIWM was able to attract and capture a vast cohort of attendees which exceeded their greatest expectations. Likewise, by using one of All In The Loop’s personalised and versatile web platforms, CIWM ensured that the virtual participants’ experience could comfortably match that of in-person attendees.