What You Need to Plan A Virtual Event

When I was in college I lived in Warsaw, Poland for a year.  This was in 1990 - the year the Berlin wall fell.  I remember how hard it was to get in contact with people back home.  I didn't have access to a computer, you couldn't make long distance calls from private homes (you needed to go to the post office) and I couldn't find a yellow pages in the whole country - so if I wanted to find a shoe store I had to ask around…  When I wanted to talk to someone back home.  I would go downtown to the Marriott pay $7 and fax a sheet of paper that said "call me".  I wrote letters — but they took weeks to arrive.

Lately,  I've been doing some business coaching with Bob the Teacher (awesome - if you ever get the chance- hire him…)  For half of the class, he was in Poland.  But, I couldn't tell.  We communicated via Skype.  It was just as if we was down the street.  The Internet has made communication so easy.  It is no wonder that virtual conferences are becoming more and more popular.  You don't even need much technology-wise to get started.  Here is my list of basic tools that you need to put on a virtual event.

1. Event Website - This can be a simple one-page site, a page on a blog or something more complicated.  The idea is that people need somewhere to go to register and get information about your event.

2. Payment Processor (if not a free event) - people need to be able to pay for the event.  Paypal is a decent place to start - they take a small percentage of each transaction but it is free to set up an account.

3. Online meeting space — this can be as simple as a free bridgeliine (try freeconferencecall.com) which allows multiple people to be on the line at once, or maestroconference which allows you to conduct small group sessions or a video solution like go to meeting or dim dim.  Even the paid services are inexpensive.

4. E-mail service - like aweber or icontact.  These services provide an easy way to keep in touch with your conference participants.

That's it.  When you compare that to arranging logistics for hotels, meals, meeting rooms, transportation… it is easy to see why virtual events are becoming popular and why the demand for virtual event specialists will only increase in the future.

I've put together a mindmap to help you get started. You can register to download it here.

The page also includes a special bonus offer for people who sign up for the new VAClassroom Event Management Specialist Program using this link.