Guide: How To Run A Virtual Awards Ceremony
The social distancing measures are in full swing across the borders and now more than ever, it is essential for organizations to recognize the hard work put in by people striving to make it better. While everything seems to have halted, there is a lot that can be done virtually, awards ceremony, for instance. Read on to know about moving your awards ceremony to a virtual platform.
The importance of turning towards virtual events
Believe it or not, virtual events have been into existence long before COVID-19 hit us and yes, they are possible. When you are to attend an event physically, there is a lot of planning that goes into it. Running a virtual event requires a new set of skills, new tools. You will enjoy this “new normal in the event industry”, as soon as you’re confident in organizing virtual events. Here is why –
- Cut back on travel expenses while saving time.
- Saving your spends on venue rental or conference space.
- Reduce carbon footprint.
- Go green and save paper by using digital platforms to circulate flyers, brochures, guides and much more instead of the good old printed communication collaterals.
- Get more and new attendees along with better prospects of sponsors if you lower the entry or ticket cost.
- Virtual events can be attended from literally anywhere, anytime in the world.
- Easier to invite well-known judges, who have less busy schedules and usually are more open to joining new projects.
The good and bad side of the virtual awards ceremony
As we all are aware, each thing has a negative and a positive side to it. Let us explore the upside and downside of running the virtual awards ceremony program.
The good
- Attendance: At times, due to unforeseen circumstances, a person can not really make it to being present physically at an event. But with a virtual awards ceremony, in-person attendance is convenient and hassle-free.
- Recognition: A person may be rewarded privately in an organization but when it comes to virtual awards, all the attendees know who is being awarded what for their work.
- Long term benefits: Additionally, a virtual award ceremony will let you create a product in the form of recordings — that can be shared across and be used as a motivational tool for months and years after the event has happened.
The bad
- Zero face to face networking – A key aspect of award functions and conferences is networking. The virtual events have a big limitation as the attendees do not really get a chance to have one on one discussions with one another.
- Distractions: While it sounds so comfortable that a person can attend an event such as an award ceremony from the comfort of their home, it can also expose him or her to various distractions whether it is family or pets or internet issues.
- Ineffective sponsorships: Organizations are not really able to establish a connection with their target audience as there is little to almost no face to face interaction with the attendees to leave an impact on them.
- Less Excitement: A virtual award ceremony is just an event that will be attended by someone by opening a browser on the laptop. The grandeur that is an integral part of live events is going to be missing. The people attending virtual events might just be shopping online while attending them.
What’s with the planning part?
While there is no denial of the fact that organizing a live event requires a lot of time, effort, energy, and money, putting up a virtual award ceremony requires planning as well. In this section, we shall be discussing how to run a virtual awards ceremony.
Build the submission process
So you are trying to pull a virtual awards gala together on a virtual platform. Guess what is the first step? Building a submission form lets you contact more users. Just before an event such as an award ceremony, it is essential and safer to know the number of people and who exactly is expected to attend your event.
Create a schedule for the award ceremony
Nowadays, many organizations have been searching about how to run a successful virtual event. The key to any successful event is creating a schedule for the same. A schedule makes sure that nothing is missed or goes wrong.
Manage the live streaming
In order to live stream an event, you need to register it on a streaming device. No matter which broadcasting platform you choose, it will require bandwidth and special server equipment to process the data successfully.
Invite attendees to your awards ceremony
After you have built the submission process, created the schedule for the award ceremony, and taken care of the live streaming bit, it is time to invite attendees for the event. You can send them an email, a personal note, or even let them know through a group chat or whatever feels more comfortable to you.
Invite the jury for your award function
A virtual award ceremony does not mean that you can let go of having a jury of judges to assess the function. A jury is responsible for taking control of the event, directing it, announce the winners in an unbiased way, and buck up the morale of the people who lost.
Choosing judges
Whether you are organizing a real-time award ceremony event or a virtual one, you will have to have a panel of judges to decide and announce the winner. The judges could be from within your organization such as personnel from the higher management or you can even opt for the voting system — whoever gets the maximum votes wins.
Missing out on including your sponsors? Nope!
Brands sponsor events in a bid to move their own sales forward, gain visibility, and generate brand awareness. If you are organizing a virtual event, you must reach out to different brands and ask whether they would be interested in sponsoring it or not. Sponsorship improves the outlook for gathering, attracts the attendees, and can even bring in the budget required to organize the event. Virtual or actual, when an event is backed by sponsorship, it gains credibility and is likely to see an increase in numbers.
Need help with hosting an awards ceremony?
While we understand that the COVID-19 pandemic is one of its kind situations that the world is dealing with, our team of experts at Judgify is just a click away to help you plan a virtual awards ceremony.
The technical nitty-gritty of award functions – platforms to host and stream
Virtual events are quite like any other kind of conference, but the only exception is that they take place over the internet. Virtual events let you hold meetings and engage the audience to achieve your goals through interactive technology. From Zoom to Converve, Webinar Jam to Click Meet, there are tens and hundreds of platforms one can use to host and stream the award function. Some platforms offer not just live streaming, but a whole new set of features, to create a unique and engaging awards ceremony experience.
Engage the attendees in the right way
No matter what, do not forget about your attendees. Remember to keep them engaged so that they stick around your event instead of surfing the internet. You can choose to interact with them, come up with the kind of content that engages the audience, or use frequent Q&A sessions.
Making connections and establishing network during a virtual awards event
The nature of the event does not matter when it comes to getting to know people and growing your network. Without a doubt, there may be certain shortcomings as you will not be able to personally meet people and connect in the way you could have, but with the pandemic situation being the new normal, you can actively facilitate and make sure everything runs smoothly, gets along, the timetable is followed, and meaningful connections are established.
Overseeing Voting, Automated Scoring, and Reporting
Voting is an integral part of an award function, which can be done digitally with the help of a virtual judging platform . The votes are recorded and automated scoring is put to use so that the winner can be announced. Automated scoring makes use of machines such as computers to evaluate the score given by people. Finally, a report is compiled and shared with the jury so that they can announce the winner.
The entire process needs to be watched closely so that the award function runs smoothly and in a fair manner.
Promote your virtual awards
The golden rule to make any kind of event a hit is to promote it. The more you promote your event, the better traction you will be able to get. Sending invitations, setting ticket costs for paid events, highlighting about the sponsors, and judges are just a few things that remain the same like the good-old-days. Remember to send reminders about your award ceremony event multiple times, and create urgency as the event draws near. Listed below are a few steps to help you promote online award event –
- Create an attention-grabbing event page
- Use keywords to help your search potential
- Utilize email marketing the best
- Promote your event through social media across platforms
- Ask people to tell their friends
- Videos work so you can make a video or vlog and show it off
Collecting data
In the case of the awards function, you will be using the data tracker applications to keep track of the attendees, their preference, their geo-location, age, gender, etc. An excellent tool for collecting attendee data would be asking them to fill forms. Analyzing this data allows you to see how many people attended the event, their interests, and more. You can use analytics software to understand the data.
How to measure success?
Measuring the success of your event would largely depend upon the attendee ratio (AR) that measures the percent of people who attended the event as a ratio compared to those who registered.
Next, the polls will let you find out the interests of your attendees by measuring real-time feedback. In addition to this, you can use exit surveys to measure how well you met the expectations of your audience, such as if your event delivered what it promised to the target audience and more.
Final Word
With a number of talented people participating in your event, a virtual gala will give them just the celebration they are looking for. If you are able to engage your target audience, glorify and laud the finalists and winners while showcasing the sponsors and letting people have a sneak peek of the behind-the-scenes, there is no stopping the fact that your event will be a great success.