You know those online events where you sit and try to stay awake while a series of speakers talks at you, disgorging information into your brain like a firehose? This isn’t that.
Awesome Virtual Interactive Events™ (or AVIEs) are multispeaker virtual events, but, more than that, they are experiences. They are true events where attendees, speakers, and the host can interact and connect just like if they were in person…just without the expensive plane tickets and weird hotel rooms.
The Typical Summit
Most summits are built around delivering information. The host brings together a number of experts and thought leaders to share their knowledge on a virtual stage.
The purpose of the summit is to get people to register, or opt-in, so they can be marketed to later. It is also often to bring the audience into a funnel where they can be led on a journey that hopefully leads to a sale.
This was great years ago when there was no YouTube and no podcasts. Valuable information was offered in exchange for the opportunity to get business.
But there is YouTube now. There are podcasts now. Information is everywhere. These events that deliver only information can leave one wanting.
The Real Value of a Virtual Interactive Event
In a world awash in information, the two highest forms of value are connection and transformation, and an AVIE can provide both.
Connection
Just like summits, an AVIE has a number of experts and thought leaders sharing their expertise. That’s what draws the audience, but that is only the beginning.
Rather than focusing the attention exclusively on the speakers, an AVIE brings the speakers and the audience together. Through live Q&A, breakout sessions, interactive hotseats, and more, the audience is an active participant rather than a passive consumer.
People who attend Awesome Virtual Interactive Events leave, not only with information, but with new connections, contacts, prospects, partners, and friends.
Transformation
If information were the key to success then philosophy and library science majors would be the richest people on Earth. Information is crucial, but information without action is just information.
All the information in the world doesn’t do anything if you can’t connect it back to your own personal situation.
This is why AVIEs provide the opportunity for attendees to have conversations live in the room which help them to turn this theory into practice.
We take this to the next level by running live hotseats during the events. A hotseat can be incredibly powerful as one volunteer steps up with their most stultifying challenge to get support and coaching directly from a panel of incredible experts.
We have seen powerful transformation occur right on our virtual stage. And it’s not just the person in the hotseat who benefits. Many audience members have reported powerful learnings just from listening to the challenges of their fellow audience member.
How does an Awesome Virtual Interactive Event work?
Our standard event is 6 hours long with 10 speakers each speaking in 15 minute blocks. In between each speaker is a 15 minute interactive block when we do breakouts, Q&A, roundtables, hotseats, and other interactive programming.
Our events are so engaging that we often have as many or more people on the call at the end of the day as we did at the start. You don’t see that often with 6 hour Zoom calls.
Unlike many other summits where the speakers just drop in to give their talk and then scoot, our speakers are encouraged to participate in the entire event. This is mostly for their own benefit.
A summit talk is rarely long enough to truly connect with an audience, but by participating in the interactive portions of the event: connecting in breakout rooms, coaching on hotseats, participating in Q&A, the speaker is able to make deeper connections which can lead to business, both in the form of clients and joint venture partners.
Our speakers often report making powerful connections on our interactive events, and we have many well paid speakers who speak on our AVIE stages because of the value they receive in connections, information, and prospects.
The Experience for Speakers
At many other events, speakers come in, dispense information, and leave.
While you could approach an AVIE in that way, it is highly discouraged because you will miss out on all the best value.
Our speakers are encouraged to attend the entire event as well as the speaker meeting. This is because over numerous events, our speakers tell us that the first and most common form of value they take from participating in an AVIE is the connections to the other speakers.
They find collaborative partners, JV partners, mentors, resources, and sometimes even clients.
At most events, you speak and hope for the best. You have likely spoken at many events and never seen anything come of it. In an AVIE, you can more hands on. By being present through the event, you have the chance to connect with attendees in breakouts, during hotseats, Q&A, and throughout the event in the chat.
You have the unique opportunity to identify challenges that attendees have and engage with them to connect. There is no better way to get a great prospect than helping them with a problem!
Join us for an AVIE!
The best way to understand an AVIE is to participate in an AVIE.
To find all upcoming events that you can register for as well as open applications, go here.
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