How do you work with a hybrid event production team, particularly when it comes to coordinating with onsite A/V teams?
In this episode of #ThoughtLeaderConversations, event industry veteran Julie Migliacci of Revent Consulting swaps expertise and stories with V2’s Head of Strategy, Roger Courville.
Together they touch on topics such as:
A story about a gig from an airplane hangar
The three big skill buckets you need to master
How adding a hybrid component to a fundraiser increased donations $50,000
Advantages – and disadvantages – hybrid events bring to the table
How a virtual event team bridges the engagement gap
Planning for participants with low technical literacy
How “the dreaded intern” complicates your life
Choosing different platforms based on event design
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Series: Thought Leader Conversations
Sponsor: V2, LLC, expert virtual and hybrid event production, www.VirtualVenues.com
Host: Roger Courville, CSP, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerc/
Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:00] Roger Courville, CSP: How do you work with a hybrid event production team, particularly when it comes to coordinating with onsite AV teams? What is the special sauce? hello and welcome to another casual conversation, bridging the Hybrid Event Production Gap. And my name's Roger Courville and welcome to V2's #ThoughtLeaderConversations series, and I'm really excited to have our guest with you today, you know that here we connect really specialized use cases with really specialized platforms, not using the generic stuff, but we're not here to talk about us because one of the pleasures of my life today is that Julie Migliacci is here with us….what would you call her?
Guru, co-founder, owner, cat herder at event consulting. Two decades of experience in virtual and hybrid from small organizations to big ones, celebrity fundraisers, premier cooking shows. She's done lots of cool stuff. And we're gonna start, we won't end, but we'll start with how do we coordinate onsite and online cruise.
She currently resides in Boston, Mass after having been born and raised in France and lived in four countries. Welcome. Thanks,
[00:01:19] Julie Migliacci: Roger. I'm so happy to be here today.
[00:01:22] Roger Courville, CSP: grab your coffee and and let's roll. Hey, any any gaps before we open that? Open it up with that kind of like meat question. Tell us who you are and what you do.
[00:01:33] Julie Migliacci: Sure. As you said, my name is Julie. I'm one of the co-owners of Revent Consulting. We're an event planning company that specializes in hybrid and virtual events and have been in the space for 15 years, so have seen the evolution of what virtual means and also. What's really exciting now post pandemic is what is hybrid now, because I think people are expecting more from it than they did pre pandemic, which is really fun.
[00:02:00] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. True words could not be spoken well. So let's talk about bridging that gap and maybe just as a starting place, let's talk about coordinating the online team and the onsite team. What's the most important thing to.
[00:02:18] Julie Migliacci: I think one of the big things that we're seeing post pandemic, so pre pandemic, a hybrid event was considered just pointing a camera at the stage and the web audience was just digesting similar to a TV show.
What was happening in the room? Ding ding. There was really no right , which now, thankfully, and I'm really excited about this, is post pandemic. people are demanding more interaction with the room and they're asking for it. And if you see people are like, oh, I don't like hybrid often it's because they've only experienced a television watching portion of hybrid, not a great virtual event as part of an in-person event.
Yeah, so I think that's where we're heading. It's really cool that it's coming from the audience. They want more, and I think we should give them more,
[00:03:10] Roger Courville, CSP: Since we're just having a cup of coffee, let me throw a long range idea at you and tell me if you agree, disagree, totally okay to disagree, but oftentimes to your point cuz you're dead on, we got this in-person event and the afterthought is the hybrid crew and we're happy if some people show up, but they're basically just passive flies on the wall.
But what happens when somebody's 500 person event has 5,000 people online Now, where is your emphasis from speaker prep to, oh my gosh, who's the more important crew to audience to serve? I just, I'm just curious if, I realize that might be a far reaching kind of thing, but I'm just curious, does that make sense?
Do you think people will show up and make that switch? Or are people gonna just always be naval gaz? with regard to the onsite portion.
[00:04:08] Julie Migliacci: I think people, traditionally, when you're looking at the true hybrid, so full virtual audience, full in-person audience, their comfort level is to focus on that in-person audience.
that's people's comfort because they know that they know exactly what to do. There's the checklist let's feed them, entertain them, and then, make sure they can mingle. It seems it's a lot of work. I don't wanna feel that, but that's the fo that's been the comfort point. So I think now a lot of traditional event planners are tasked with this whole other audience, and sometimes we've seen it where the web audience is bigger than the in-person.
And how do you do both? and that's, I think that's where a lot of people hit that roadblock. And our approach to it has been to flip it on its head a little bit, where we look at it as two events, not one event, first of all. So we're gonna go and make a great in-person event. We're gonna really tap into what's great about being in-person, which is being together, breaking bread, networking, bumping elbows, you.
all those things that are really hard to replicate online, honestly, really focus on those and hone in for that, for the in-person event. And then we're gonna, on the side of that, create a great virtual event, which, what are the benefits of great virtual? Being able to meet people from all over the world simultaneously, being able to click up a button, depending on what platform you're on, exchange information and ideas, the ability to break time and space so you don't necessarily need to watch the content live anymore while still being able to interact with a speaker post event.
So really take advantage of all those things. Create a great virtual event, and then merge 'em at certain points. , but it doesn't have to be for the entire event. You can go in and out emerging them again, tapping into what's great about both and taking advantage of them. And that's been our approach and a lot of our clients find it really interesting that we're like, we're planning two events.
We're not doing just one. And to really look at it that way.
[00:06:16] Roger Courville, CSP: Interesting. I'm just curious when you are talking to somebody like a potential client Yeah. , does that help them make sense of the virtual part in a different way? Let me share with you my presupposition behind the question. Sure.
The question is, when you're talking to somebody who's planning a hybrid event, does it help to start them thinking about it as two events? And the presupposition behind that is, is often I have seen the, that. That person whose primary thought pattern has been in person still, it's pretty rare I'm seeing somebody that actually is thinking hybrid right out of the box.
Yeah. And when someone's thinking about planning events in person, Their version of technology is the AV crew that's on site, right? And the AV crew of course, particularly since Covid hit. Of course, their answer is of course we can stream that out!" Which of course is how we ended up with the passive television model before, right?
They here's your link, send that out. And, but the onsite AV team, their expertise hasn't been saying, how do we bridge the gap? No. How do we help people interact? How do we, is there a way for us to help onsite people interact with the people that are online or vice versa? So back to that question, when you're first talking to somebody, where is their head often at?
[00:07:53] Julie Migliacci: They often, I find that now everybody's experience. Same way. At the beginning of the pandemic, everybody was just jumping into virtual and then about six months in, people started getting a sense of what was good and what was bad virtual like the education was steep. I think now with hybrid, that same education is happening, so people are experiencing great hybrid.
They're also experiencing atrocious hybrid. I recently experienced a hybrid where it was an iPad passed around the. that is not hybrid. , for everybody listening, that's not hybrid. really bad. Don't do it. .
[00:08:26] Roger Courville, CSP: why does it sound like we're in a gymnasium here?
[00:08:30] Julie Migliacci: No. It was, I, and I was one that I've had attendees and I had it was like a toddler running around a room with a iPhone.
It was terrible. So I think people are starting to see the legwork that needs to go into great hybrid and if they're raising their hand and reaching out to a company like. . They know they need help and they know they need the expertise. And it's often we tell them right away "Hey, we've been doing this for 15 years."
We're gonna give you a warm hug and we're gonna shepherd you through this process. And the process doesn't have to be hard. Like it could really simple little like tweaks to your agenda and to your show will make a huge difference. Like one of the simplest things you could do when you do a hybrid is that first speaker that hits that stage that.
Looks back at the camera in the back of the room, makes virtual eye contact with our web audience welcome some and then celebrate some for choosing to stay in their pajamas instead of getting dressed and coming. And what does that do? That acknowledges the web audience. You've made eye contact with them, you've communicated with them.
You've also alerted the inroom audience that there is a web audience and to expect them to be part of the show. and you're telling the web audience, you are part of this as well, and that doesn't cost any money. That's just a simple little tip. So showing them that yes, we could go crazy with AV and like bringing the web audience on stage and doing all these things, you can even now get an avatar.
of a virtual speaker like Star Trek style, . I know to this stage is so cool. costs a lot of money. Still maybe one day will be inexpensive, but you can really do simple things to create a great hybrid event without spending a ton of cash and just showing them those little tricks that will make a huge difference.
[00:10:26] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. They've got to. be willing. Some will, some won't. . So what next? Just outta curiosity, what question do you wish that clients asked you?
[00:10:40] Julie Migliacci: I, it's as simple as how do I engage my web audience? Cuz a lot of them are still in that television watching mode. And for us, it's us pushing them in that direction of thinking differently about it.
A lot of the hybrids that we're seeing we're really pushing them and once they've done it, they see it, they understand it, they're like, Oh, our web audience gave us great feedback. Or they, if it's a fundraiser, oh my God, we raised an extra $50,000 off the web audience by doing these little things that make an impact.
And I think a lot of them have to see it to believe it, which is okay, we're happy to show you the way, but. It's, that's the big question, right? And we're starting to see the clients ask that question, and it seems so, like we're, that's literally the topic of today, but it's not asked. And if you're planning a hybrid event, whoever your producer is, ask them because they have, we all have our little tricks, right?
let us tap into them. For you
[00:11:45] Roger Courville, CSP: to be, to put an exclamation point behind that and. My version of that would be don't start with the AV team. Yeah. On site that I'll share with you why That doesn't, that it takes nothing away from AV teams. There's some killer onsite AV teams. No, they're right.
Great
[00:12:08] Julie Migliacci: AV teams but they're great at av. Let them be great at AV .
[00:12:11] Roger Courville, CSP: And what you just described, I'm gonna put this exclamation point behind what you just described. What you just described is saying, how do we connect with people, not connect two, but connect. . Whether it's how you coach that op, opening speaker to justno even acknowledge
let alone involving the online audience. Exactly. yeah, and the economists call some things experience goods. What you just described is an experience. Good, right? " I don't know what it is, but I know that was a lot better. And there's an important distinction that is hard to put, in three bullet points on your website, which in fact is part of why we're just hosting some conversations like this.
So where do you start? Somebody comes they find you. And by the way, prevent consulting, not.com consulting is the domain event. Do consulting is where you're gonna find Julie and the crew. But where do you start? Somebody gives you a shout and let's just say, they like a little bit of the story that you've, you've shared probably like what you've just shared here.
When you start walking them through what's that next step in terms of going how do I help them take what's in their head and flesh it out so that we have this awesome integrated experience? .
[00:13:39] Julie Migliacci: The first step is I always like to look at what's the main purpose of the event? What kind of event is it?
Is it a fundraising event? Is it a conference? Is it a speaker series? Is it a celebration event? Who's attending? So who's the what's the average age of the audience? What is the main goal? And I often ask our clients like, if one thing didn't happen with your event, whether that's hybrid, full, virtual in person, if one thing didn't happen, , would you, what was that one thing that would make you upset?
Let's say their response is, I would be really upset if not all my attendees got to connect with people that, we're really gonna hone in on that. And then the next step after figuring out the main purpose. Is finding the right virtual home Roger. As there is hundreds of virtual platforms, right?
Some are better in hybrid than others. Some are easier to use than others. Some are cheaper than others. It's finding that virtual space for them. to host the event, to host a hybrid event to make sure that it's ticking all the boxes that they wanna do. So if they're doing, let's say, a hybrid fundraiser, we're gonna go to an event.
Dot gives a, give smartt platforms that are specifically made for fundraising. Where the buttons show up on the screen, you could still sell your tickets for your in-person event on there. All your sponsors are listed. Your sign auction, everything's on the same platform. We're gonna go more that route. If it's a conference, we're gonna look, maybe if they have a smaller budget zoom events, or we're maybe gonna look at Excel events or even look at some of the bigger platforms out there, pinning their budget.
And those platforms are gonna focus more on human connection. On ease of use on a multi-day event, those types of things. So we're really gonna dive into the different options and then present that. And then once you have the home, then you start the fun part. So it's the planning. It's a look. It's figuring out what kind of AV we need, and that's when we bring in our AB partners.
Do we need 1, 2, 3, 4 cameras? Do we want a drone shot? Do we want the crazy AV with, the avatar speaker on the stage? Are all your speakers in person? We're seeing a lot more virtual speakers as part of hybrid events. , so look at the full spectrum. Of the event, and then we really slowly dive into event day and where we get there.
But like speaker prep, all that jazz goes into leading to event day. But the first step is the why. Why are we here? And
[00:16:19] Roger Courville, CSP: what, just outta curiosity, how often are you bringing in the onsite team versus how many times are you intersecting with the onsite team that you've. that either already in place or is required by, the union, , whatever that might be.
[00:16:37] Julie Migliacci: Credit AV team? . I would say it's about 70, 30, 70% of the time we provide the AB crew, so we tend to look at local resource. Because it's so expensive to fly equipment that we do have local partners and all the major hubs in the world really bringing 'em in. and it's people that we know can do it, but Right.
if it's the client's AV company, I get on the phone with them as quickly as I can let's iron this out. okay, we have a remote speaker. Let's talk about the plant for that. Cuz with a remote speaker specifically, it's really easy to get a feedback, an audio feedback loop, and that's when everybody's staring out their headphones.
Yeah. You wanna make sure you're bringing the right equipment and they're saying the right words and you're getting them to think out of the box. Even for a simple hybrid where it's on Zoom meeting, simple as can be the number of AV crews that are booked by our clients. And I get on the phone with 'em and I'm like, Hey, what's the plan for power?
And they just look at you with deer in the headlights what do you mean the plan for PowerPoints? I was like are you gonna just have a wider shot on the camera so we can see the screen in the room, which is the cheapest way to do it, but not super CREs? Are you having the Dax Lo loaded locally and putting that through the video stream?
Or are you having somebody sharing locally and mimicking what the speaker's doing in the room and just asking those simple things? ahead of time, you can get ahead of it versus your five minutes from opening the doors and all of a sudden they're like, oh, there's no plan to sharing PowerPoints. So we're just gonna see the speaker.
We're not gonna see what they have projected on screen. So get on the phone with them as quickly as possible and really think through the whole process, even for the simplest hybrids. Those are the things that are overlooked.
[00:18:30] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah, I think that is one of those things where the relative task lists of onsite versus online mean that people who live in one paradigm are often, have a different set of priorities from one to a hundred than, and I'll just add this as a guy who spent, wrote multiple books and spent a lot of years on the road as a professional speaker.
I can tell you that I think you want to hit it out of the park with speakers. Ask them what they need before you go finalize all your AV decisions. Oh, you want to play video? Is that embedded in the PowerPoint or is that a separate video file? Do you have the rights to that video and certain things, those kinds of things.
But up
[00:19:16] Julie Migliacci: the keynote file on our USB stick. Oh and. Things are so important and that's where the speaker prep is so important. Like you really wanna nail down what your speaker is expecting. Like I recently had a speaker that wanted like clown noises and thankfully we had been like, we knew, so it was part of his presentation.
So we did have two-way audio going back into it was all included going back to the web so that they didn't miss out on that lovely noise.
[00:19:50] Roger Courville, CSP: Dang it. I don't have any, I don't have any cloud noises teed up. , but there you go. Yeah, that's, it's if to me and tell me if I'm taking your words out of order, when you go, okay, what's your purpose?
Who's your audience? to me it's almost. My job is in the production business is to connect to the speaker with the audience. And the audience to the audience, right? And so missing that opportunity to say, Hey, how are you? What are you gonna do with PowerPoint? What is the nature of interaction?
Interaction from the audience to the speaker? Interaction from the audience to the audience. Usually is interaction from the, your
[00:20:32] Julie Migliacci: web audience to your speaker, right? Cause you also wanna make sure that's taken into account. How are you handling web questions? All those things. And. back to a previous point of people are more comfortable with in person.
I think now it's harder to get that information out of speakers. People are gotten back more into, I'm just gonna show up and do my PowerPoint and so it's really putting the emphasis to your speakers of Hey, we wanna help you connect, we wanna help you shine on that stage. We need to know what you're doing so that we can help you do.
Yeah,
[00:21:05] Roger Courville, CSP: Done multiple gigs for M P I meeting professionals International, right? Yep. And one of the main things that I focused on was how to change or tweak your RFP when you're putting out an RFP for speakers at your conference or something like that. Tweak your RFP to figure out if that speaker can pull off what you want, your, the experience that you want your audience.
Have, and I'm just like, put it out there. You'll be surprised. You'll be surprised. the flip side of the coin is probably like everybody else. I'm in some specialized, Facebook and LinkedIn groups as a professional speaker and an advanced, and the conversations go around there too, right?
Speakers start having conversations about speakers bureaus and event planning organizations and whatever. Hey, anybody worked with these guys? And, so the reputation goes both ways. Totally just outta care. I've probably waited too long, but pick one of your fun use cases.
the cooking. Or . Is there a favorite story that you just kinda shows off kind of one of those corner case things That's a lot of fun. Oh,
[00:22:20] Julie Migliacci: I did one years ago, so this wasn't under my umbrella, but years ago did a plane reveal for a big airline where they rebranded their entire, they just did a full rebrand and part of that rebrand was a hybrid event in a hangar.
in Portland. . And so we were in a plane hangar, no internet, by the way, . So I had to bring in internet. We had multiple systems crossed your fingers and it works. What? There's no cameras, ,
[00:22:55] Roger Courville, CSP: there's no broadband in I mean there is nowadays, but there's no broadband in airplane hangers, ,
[00:23:01] Julie Migliacci: no, not a thing.
So I had to bring, we also had to bring in power so we're bringing in everything. Space have cameras mounted to the ceilings on tracks. We had about seven cameras, full stage, t-shirt, guns, the whole thing, full hybrid. And it was all about the reveal of the plane. So the stewards, actual stewards came out at one point and dance gaman style.
So you could get a sense of the era that this was into cuz game and style was all the rage back then. Yep. And Google it at one point, we like. It was like sparkles everywhere. Drape falls, new airplane right behind the stage. And it was just so cool to cuz not only do we produce a hybrid that day, but we produced television in a real way where it was incredibly entertaining for the in-person audience, but as well as the web audience.
The way we brought in the web audience was it was a one way platform. So meaning, the stage could speak to the web audience, but the web audience could only respond back to a chat box or q and a box. We actually brought up their chats on the screen in the room, so you would see it light up there's the web audience.
The moderator was like, oh my God, Steve, we see you. Isn't it so cool? And made them part of the conversation in a way that the in-person audience couldn't be. So we gave them a moment to shine. And again, not super complicated. We're not talking about crazy AV here. it allowed them to be part of it and to be seen as part of it.
And we created a real entertaining show for them. And that was a really, that was one of the crazier ones that I've done. And I was banned from using the t-shirt guns, which I thought was very unfair. I just T-shirt guns. Like you put a T-shirt, right? Oh yeah. And then I, and you shoot it from the stages, somebody gets a t-shirt.
And I really wanted to shoot
It wasn't allowed,
[00:25:02] Roger Courville, CSP: which you heard it here first, folks, if you wanna do a virtual event with a t-shirt gun, call Julie
[00:25:09] Julie Migliacci: right here. but that was one of the crazier ones we've done, but we've also done, I, my favorite ones are the virtual fundraisers is because you're helping a nonprofit that often is limited in funds and their events, their big event.
And to watch the power of hybrid. of them being able to tap into an audience that isn't in the same geographical location as the physical event and to be able to get donations and. More contacts by adding that hybrid, they've made like an extra 50 to $60,000 just because they made it hybrid.
Yeah. And that's money they would've left on the table if they hadn't. Yeah. So it that, those are the ones that like, make me really happy. That one we did have one of my favorite auctioneers do, and he's a little crazy and was hard to keep up with him on camera, but I was like, just don't go under the tables.
Just stay at least where we can see you , so we can try to follow you through the room. But that's the power of hybrid for me is being able to tap into a totally other group. And with fundraisers you can get, see the impact right away, which
[00:26:20] Roger Courville, CSP: is cool. Yeah. You know what? You just brought up something or made me think of something that relates to.
How this has been transformative for business models. Broadly speaking, you need three big buckets, right? Production, promotion, and presentation. Those are the three big buckets of people in process that we work with. And so far we haven't talked about promotion, but you just, as you were just describing that, you just made me think about one of the fundraising experiences that we worked on and.
But the, one of the discoveries for them, right? virtual venues is virtual event production. like event is the, one of the, their discoveries was how much farther into the process they could continue to send out invites. Because I'm not planning, if somebody's showing up to the online version, I don't necessarily.
Plan in-person capacity and food and those kinds of things in the same way. And to your point, and I'm giving you credit for this, you could do, you could blend some lead generation, someone you know, a little bit of the forward to a friend or that kind of thing that that can be very.
You can do that functionally right up to the beginning of the event as opposed to needing some form of a cutoff or saying there's an door at the door fee. Yeah.
[00:27:49] Julie Migliacci: Those tickets could stay open through the event where, while the event has already started, you could be selling tickets where in person you could probably, squeeze in an extra 20, but you're not gonna squeeze in a few hundred and virtually, depending what platform you're on.
Obviously some platform is hard caps, but if you have a platform that the more the merrier. And that's part of that, also that planning process when we're looking at platforms is do we expect. , is do we expect a big surge and do we wanna be prepared for the big surge? which is always a good thing to have.
You don't have four walls you're stuck into, you can spread them as you
[00:28:27] Roger Courville, CSP: need. And unlike when Julie and I started this business a long time ago, and sadly, I'm. As you can tell, way older than she is. there used to be a always be a hard cap, . It was like, all right, we've got 200 lines booked. Oh, you want 201?
Sorry. Fortunately that's not the case.
[00:28:46] Julie Migliacci: The VP of something, it was always the executive that was number 201. Maybe
[00:28:52] Roger Courville, CSP: one of these days we'll do one of these and talk about blooper stories and. I've got a huge one on that one. But continuing on the fundraising you mentioned something, I don't know, half an hour ago that made me think of something that our, somebody listening right now could be thinking about.
And that was age and here was an experience of mine and I'm curious to know how. Think of how my, how you might tackle it in, and it's not ageism it's literally thinking about demographics and psychographics from a generational perspective so that we understand how that virtual attendee may be joining, which includes understanding their relative technical literacy.
And that's, some people go, yeah. Oh, pull out my phone. and some people are like, huh just outta curiosity, have you ever have you run into that? Or if you were talking to some here's an example. I'll just give you a use case. If you were to do a fundraiser and of course their heavy hitter donation people fundraising or patrons are people of means, which more often than not, More as opposed to less gray hair.
What do you do when you know you're gonna be working with an audience that may have a either a lower level of technical literacy or they just don't spend all day in front of a browser like you and I do?
[00:30:27] Julie Migliacci: That's the hard part, and Covid has definitely helped with that. I think you. I, we might have worked on this event together, Roger, where there was like a 96 year old man and he kept jumping between sessions that everybody was cheering when he was in there.
He was like, I got Harry. he was wonderful. it's, I forgot
[00:30:45] Roger Courville, CSP: about that. Yeah. ,
[00:30:47] Julie Migliacci: it's been a learning curve of. Technology as people get more comfortable, we have seen it. So with fundraisers what we're helping, even if it's just an in-person fundraiser, we're helping bridge the gap of bringing some of the aspects online.
So registration is online, touchless check-in. So you arrive, you say, I'm here on your phone. You get a text message with your bid number and your table number so that you don't have to wait in the long registration line. All the virtual auctions online, the bidding's, all everything's. and it's done for your phone.
The first one we did, a gentleman that was significantly had a lot of gray hair. He, comes in and he shows me his flip phone. He did not have an iPhone or a Pixel or whatever. He did not have a smartphone, and so we were all of a sudden in the situation that was a little bit d difficult. But what we did is we're like, sir, you come see.
and we bid on his behalf all night long. So it's more about thinking on your feet, but you definitely wanna think about that. we're playing another hybrid fundraiser in the fall here, and the average age, I was told is 78. And we're not bringing everything online for this one. We decide not to because of the age of the audience would divert them from participating if you brought it online.
However, if you're trying to go after a younger audience, . So specifically in the fundraising world, I think there is this expectation from the certain generations that in order to do a fundraiser, you have to sit down, you have to eat the rubber chicken. It's a four course dinner and a two hour state show.
That's the expectation, right? I think the younger generations, the younger millennials, gen Zs, that group, they don't want any of that, but they're willing to give you their money. So for them, that's where the. is interesting, so you wanna really see who your audience is so that you can use the right technology and use it wisely.
for, depending on what your goal is and who's gonna show up, and if it's both audiences, which is hopefully the case, then what you do is you prep for the person that's gonna show up with their flip phone with iPad stations by the sign auctions and those types of things to, so that you're ready, which is what we're doing with this group for this year.
we're prepping for the flip phone gentle. pretty heavily . Make the tech as easy as possible.
[00:33:21] Roger Courville, CSP: Exactly. though you're gonna have to stop telling that story now that smartphones are getting, going back to the flips, the foldable,
[00:33:29] Julie Migliacci: foldable, I was reading about Jen Z going back to flip phones and I was like, oh.
Or killing me small. it's because
[00:33:34] Roger Courville, CSP: I don't need something either. Something the size of an iPad doesn't fit in my pocket. That's the, that's part of the challenge. But, let me highlight something based on something that you just said that. Something that Julie just said really should affect if you're a planner or a thinking ahead, you're you're the person that owns this event.
Yeah. The reason you want to call Julie as early in the process as you possibly can, don't make the hybrid or the online piece an afterthought or an add-on. It's not an in-person event plus an add-on. You want to get Julie. As early as possible is because of something like thinking through the gamification based on the demographic or a psychographic of your audience, right?
When you're inviting them all to the in local, we are rented out the art museum and we're doing the banquet. You don't care if they're 19 or 90 and have a flip phone or. and yet, so thinking through that user experience, really,
[00:34:42] Julie Migliacci: go ahead. if you wanna move your check-in online, so it's touchless check-in, you don't have those huge lines to get into your event you still, you need.
that registration needs to start bright. You don't wanna have to backtrack a registration and be like, oh wait, we're using a platform that doesn't allow for this. But we really wanted this cuz now you have to move all your registrations, you have to recreate a site. It's this whole process and you're doing double work.
So definitely get a me or somebody like me involved in the infancy stages. Cuz even if you're thinking you might not take it hybrid. Having a platform that allows you to take it hybrid that's set up properly and supports your in-person event, start good with that, find the right home for all of that as quickly as possible.
As
[00:35:30] Roger Courville, CSP: we're moving toward wrapping up here, let's talk about build versus buy. , right? Do you change your own oil or go to your jiffy loop, just outta curiosity when, I presume they're at least searching, or, somewhere down the process by the time they actually end up on the phone with you.
But when you're talking in, particularly in the corporate world, how often are you running into somebody who's thinking they can do this themselves versus why should I hire you?
[00:35:56] Julie Migliacci: a lot. it's, we call it the dreaded intern. That's I can do this. . Okay. Which, no offense to interns, maybe they can, I could be very wrong.
But know your limits. We're experts. I'm not gonna pretend I know how to change oil. I don't. I go to Jiffy Lobe. I could learn, I could spend a lot of time on YouTube and figure it out. We know what we're doing. We have a pulse, our hand on the pulse of the industry. We know what QuTech is out there.
We know how to use it, and we can make your events stand out versus somebody who's learning it as they're doing it. Don't get there. We're not curing cancer here. We're not rocket scientists by any stretch of the imagination, but it allow, let us bring your expertise so you don't have to learn it from.
we're the here on top of the cake, we're the wedding planners of the virtual and hybrid space. Yeah. Let us plan your wedding.
[00:36:54] Roger Courville, CSP: Pretty much, I think, not that we wedding I'll, here's part of my experience. I'm curious to know if this is, if you would agree with this characterization, but oftentimes if it hasn't been done, oftentimes someone doesn't even know the right questions to ask.
[00:37:12] Julie Migliacci: Exactly. , like they don't know. And that's okay.
[00:37:16] Roger Courville, CSP: And then that's why trust is such an important element Of course. And why I'm sure event like like we hear at virtual venues grow almost exclusively through referral. oh, yep. You gotta talk to Julie. Never business . Word of mouth. Right?
because there's a ton of options and I trust that here 45 minutes later, one of the things that you, I hope you would take away from this is that the depth of nuance here isn't something you can communicate in a brochure. or on a website. you could if it was 500 pages, but who's gonna read 500 pages of stuff on the website?
[00:38:01] Julie Migliacci: Anybody? but yeah, no, get the experts in the room. I also, when we're trying to do a complicated AV set up, AV guys know their stuff, they know what's happening. We type into our AV partners and be like, Hey, we have a client that wants to do this crazy. What do you think? Find the right people that you can ask the right and then know the right questions to ask because they will lead you to success, whoever that person is.
[00:38:28] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. So if you don't speak a P I S t, S M T P or L M N O P, Julie is who you want to call . Julie, thanks for spending a little time. how do folks get in touch with.
[00:38:43] Julie Migliacci: you can go tove.consulting to reach out to us. My email is julie@reve.consulting and never hesitate to reach out even if it's just a brain pick.
You are allowed to pick my brain as long as you need to execute because good hybrid and good virtual helps us all. So we could all with helping each other do better and be better. And with that,
[00:39:07] Roger Courville, CSP: I trust you see exactly why I was really tickled to. To just have Julie be one of our guests. obviously Julie and I, as you heard earlier, have worked on projects together and if you are on.
Virtual venues, YouTube channel, and you see the one with Robert MacArthur. There's, there is some, there's a reason we all go way back. And one of the really useful things to think about, I think is exactly what Julie just said.
We love to. There isn't anybody in this business, and I'm just saying this to vouch for Julie and the crew at event, there isn't anybody in this business who isn't here first and foremost because they love to take care of people and help people be successful. Cuz at the end of the day, it's not about technology, it's about people.
And that's one of the things that I can say is is beautiful. R Julie in the crew event. So with that Julie, thanks again for being here. And thanks to each and every one of you for just tuning in and if you're still with us one of the things that I.