Just this week we had to cancel our annual user group gathering (thank you, COVID) where we normally host about 400 of our users and they fly in from all over the country for 3 days of amazing community time, training, sessions, and fun evenings out.
We're pivoting and will be providing a several hour virtual User Group and I was wondering if you guys have any specific tips for hosting a virtual User Group/Conference (not to be confused with just a conference call, but I mean a conference itself)??
Thanks in advance!
I think the two main things you will need to manage are who is on webcam and who is unmuted and able to speak.
If you would like to share more details about how you are hoping to structure your event I am sure some of our community members will have some tips to share.
We assume you won't have all 400 people talking at once. Thus you need an organizer who can unmute the person or persons you wish to speak. Scrolling through a list of 400 can take a few seconds trying to locate a person.
It would be good to have a second Organizer on a seperate computer to keep up with the Question box.
You can tell Attendees to raise their hand if they wish to speak. Or they can enter a question/comment in the Question box. A moderator could read the texted questions/comments.
GlennD had some great comments.
Do NOT unmute all 400 people at the same time. You will be surprised by how much background sounds can add up over many microphones, especially if they are working from home with children, pets, TVs, doorbells, typing, etc in the background.