Online Events / Hybrid, Access And After

Hybrid costs more than either mode, so choose deliberately

Doing both properly is not the average of two budgets, it is more than their sum.

Hybrid is often chosen as the cautious middle path, on the assumption that it splits the difference. It does the opposite. A properly run hybrid session needs everything the in person event needs, plus everything the online event needs, plus the connective work that joins them: the extra crew, the additional rehearsal, the second running order, the person dedicated to the remote audience, and the design effort of making activities work simultaneously in two very different environments.

When that full cost is not carried, the shortfall is always paid by the remote audience, because they are the ones not in the room to complain. The result is the broadcast failure by another route: not chosen, but arrived at through under resourcing. It is more honest, and usually better, to look at what the budget can genuinely support and pick one mode, doing it well, than to attempt both and quietly deliver a poor version of one.

Choosing one mode is not a retreat. If the value is in the material and the reach, run it online, design it properly for a screen, and let people attend from wherever they are. If the value is in the room, the encounters and the things that only happen face to face, run it in person and publish something afterwards for everyone else, which is a smaller and more achievable promise than live inclusion. What should be avoided is promising a hybrid experience that the resourcing was never going to deliver.