Posted on April 12, 2024
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Ensuring a remarkable event experience for guests in each location
Multi-city events are an increasingly popular choice as event organisers look to create a cohesive experience for attendees across locations. Multi-city events can be hybrid, bringing together different locations in real time using the latest audio-visual technology. Alternatively, event planners can aim for a repeatable and scalable event that can be held sequentially in various locations.
They’re a popular choice for medium and large-scale events like product launches, conferences and project rollouts – think of the types of events where consistent branding, messaging and formats are required. Regardless of whether events are held simultaneously with options for remote digital participation or replicating events in various cities, the goal remains to create a consistent and exceptional event experience each time.
Of course, when hosting events in multiple locations, there’s a lot to juggle. When multi-city events are held in real-time, there are challenges with connecting venues, technology, audio-visual connections, etc. Similarly, with replicated events in various locations, challenges can arise from not being on the ground to manage venue inspections, staffing the event, and other logistical concerns. Having multi-city event experts on your side, like Cliftons, can help you to bring together all the details with one integrated team to ensure your event comes to life exactly as planned.
Bringing together the right venues for consistent experiences
Whether you’re holding multi-city events at the same time or a rolling series of events across different dates, one of the challenges can be making sure there’s the same level of quality at each location. You want to be confident that your team in Brisbane receives cuisine as good as your team in Sydney or that your customer roadshow is as seamless in Perth as it is in Melbourne.
Choosing the right venue partner can make a big difference in ensuring a cohesive event experience. With locations in all Australian and New Zealand capital cities, plus a network of partner locations both domestically and internationally, we can ensure all the venues you use provide the same event experience no matter where your people are attending.
This means providing consistency with things like the food and beverage experience for delegates and on-the-ground event support to ensure everyone gets the help they need.
Reducing your emissions AND your event costs
One benefit of multi-city events is their potential to reduce the environmental impact of your events. By replicating events in multiple locations, you can reduce travel requirements and the associated carbon emissions of that travel by having delegates attend in their local city rather than flying everyone to one location.
There can also be significant cost savings from multi-city events. Saving on travel and accommodation costs can make hiring multiple smaller venues more economical than one larger venue. For events where delegates will need to cover their travel and accommodation costs, providing options on locations can also make this a more affordable proposition.
Increase the connections
Multi-city events can also be an effective strategy to increase your reach and number of attendees. For hybrid multi-city events held simultaneously, avoiding the feel of one main conference with satellite locations is important. You can achieve this through strategies like:
- Replicating the same room set-up in each city
- Ensuring there are speakers in each city, not just live presentations in one location with everyone else connecting virtually
- Having speakers on screen, even in the city they are presenting in
- Using secondary cameras to capture and share audience reactions in each location
- Providing options like push-to-talk microphones for attendees to join in and ask questions of speakers, whether they are co-located or not
- Creating options for networking, both in-person at the venue and across locations
- Incorporate live photo streaming to snap and share fun photos across all cities
- Hosting a multi-city team building event – talk to our team about both physical and virtual options.
Having a host or MC in each city who can connect with their peers in other locations to manage speaker introductions and joint sessions is also a great idea. The host can also help to raise questions of delegates in their location and ensure opportunities for live participation across venues.
Avoid the multi-city event pitfalls
Of course, multiple locations can mean multiple chances for things to go wrong. Things like:
Safe hands make multi-city event delivery seamless
While multi-city events require a bit more planning, the benefits outweigh this. Working with multi-city event delivery experts like Cliftons can help you navigate the challenges and get the remarkable event experience you need.
As well as our own nine venues in CBD locations, we also have an extensive network of partner sites globally, meaning we can ensure suitable venues for any event. Our own venues have in-house teams of award-winning chefs to provide exceptional cuisine, and we’ll work with external venues to give you confidence in the same quality.
About Cliftons
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