Event Camp Europe To Highlight Hybrid Events, New Meeting Formats

European event professionals will gather September 9,  2011 at Down Hall near London, England to experience and learn about innovative event formats and hybrid event techniques at the first ever Event Camp Europe.

“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 cannabilizing the on-site event, remote attendee engagement builds on-site attendence 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.

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.

Event Camp Europe is being organized by an international group of event professionals who met through Twitter. Ruud Janssen of Basel, Switzerland; Lindsey Rosenthal of Washington D.C.; Jenise Fryatt of La Quinta, California; Paul Cook of Surrey, United Kingdom; and Elling Hamso, of Stavenger, Norway have been working together for months using online collaboration tools to organize ECEU.

The event is the fourth Event Camp ever, following the first Event Camp held in New York City in February of 2010; Event Camp Twin Cities, held in Minnesota in September of 2010; and Event Camp East Coast, held in Philadelphia in November of 2010.  All of the Event Camps have focused on innovation for events and all can trace their origins to the online Twitter community for event professionals known as #eventprofs.

“This is truly an event born online so we are very keen to welcome online participation and create the best on-site experience possible for those who are making the trip to Down Hall,” commented Co-Organizer Paul Cook.  “Event Camp Europe will actually be the first time all of the organizers have met in person. I think that in itself will give the event an interesting flavor.”

Registration for the event is £100.   For more information about Event Camp Europe please go to http://www.eventcamp.eu or follow @eventcampeu on Twitter.

(Photo courtesy TNOC)