Convention Wiesbaden Campus
3rd event - May 20, 2021
Topic: Interactive digital conferences
The 3rd event in the Convention Wiesbaden Campus training series took place on May 20, 2021 as a livestream from the streaming studio in the Kurhaus Wiesbaden. Over 320 participants tuned in live and received valuable information from our speakers.
Our speakers Peter Blach, publisher of BlachReport (opens in a new tab), and Jörg Brokamp, lawyer, Federal Managing Director of the German Shooting Federation (opens in a new tab) and deputy spokesperson for the top associations in the DOSB (opens in a new tab), provided an overview. Peter Blach shed light on the services and features of the platforms, practicality, chat functions, participant activation and provided important information on costs. Jörg Brokamp discussed best practices from the association environment as well as the challenges and issues involved in organizing a virtual general meeting.
Insights from the event
The first speaker, Peter Blach, gave the participants an insight into digital event platforms and their special features. As the topic of event platforms is relatively new, there are no uniform rules as to what such platforms should look like. However, Peter Blach is certain of one thing from his own experience:
"Intuitive usability is an absolute must-have. And the following applies here: UX (user experience) before UI (user interface)".
The user should not have to think too much when navigating. In addition, it is advisable to define the technical capacities of the individual event platforms in advance and to know how many people can participate in the online event at the same time and whether the live stream will be available in the countries that are important to me.
Peter Blach also sees the opportunity for participants to exchange ideas in an isolated virtual space during the event and the holding of virtual elections as crucial for participant engagement. As an example, Mr. Blach cited the Guest-One (opens in a new tab) platform, whose managing directors - Marcel Schettler and Oliver Maitre - were present live at the Kurhaus and conducted a sample ballot with our 320 participants.
Jörg Brokamp, lawyer and Federal Managing Director of the German Shooting Association, shared his experience and best practices to give participants a better understanding of digital events in practice. His entertaining presentation showed why the virtual German Shooters' Day was implemented so successfully. Timely decision-making, a clear concept and the script as well as the rehearsal the day before were the most important success factors that contributed to the smooth implementation of the event. Mr. Brokamp is convinced:
"Nothing works without a rehearsal".
With digital events in particular, it is important to focus on the essentials - namely clarifying all the details in advance and having the event rehearsed. For him, the most difficult decision at the time was whether or not to implement the German Shooting Day digitally:
"Who makes the decision? When is it made? How is it made? Once it was there, that was the smaller part".
