Not everyone can be in the room
An event meeting programme is built around being in the same place at the same time. But the specialist a customer most needs to meet is not always travelling, and the customer is not always at the show. Insisting on in-person or nothing loses some of the most valuable conversations.
Video meetings and hybrid meetings, with some people in the room and some joining remotely, fill the gap when they are planned properly. Unplanned, they are among the most frustrating meetings anyone attends.
When a video meeting is the right call
- The right expert is not at the event. A 30-minute video call with the specialist who can actually answer the question beats a face-to-face meeting with someone who cannot.
- The customer could not travel. A video meeting during the event week keeps them part of the programme, and the follow-up timeline.
- The meeting is a follow-up. A conversation that started at the stand often works well as a video call the week after.
- A meeting has to move. Offering video instead of a later in-person slot can keep a meeting from slipping by weeks. See how to reschedule a meeting politely.
Bringing a remote expert into an in-person meeting
The most common hybrid meeting at an event is a customer and an account manager in a meeting room, with a specialist joining by video.
- Brief the remote expert in advance, as fully as the people in the room. They cannot pick up context from the corridor.
- Give them a named role, such as answering the technical questions in the second half, so they are not a face on a screen waiting to be asked.
- Make the remote person visible and audible. A laptop at the end of the table is not enough. Use a screen everyone can see, and a microphone that picks up the whole room.
- Have the in-room host manage the conversation, inviting the remote expert in and checking they heard each question.
The setup that makes it work
Hybrid meetings fail on logistics far more often than on content.
- Test the room before the day: connection, screen, microphone, and speaker. Venue wi-fi under show load is often weaker than at a quiet setup, so a wired connection or a mobile hotspot as backup helps.
- Send the video link in the calendar invitation, alongside the room location, so nobody is hunting for it.
- Start a few minutes early, to fix problems before the customer arrives.
- Tell everyone if the meeting is being recorded or transcribed, and ask first. Our guide to AI notetakers in client meetings covers consent and etiquette.
Scheduling across the venue and home time zones
The remote expert is often in a different time zone from the event. A 4 p.m. meeting at a show in Singapore is early morning in Europe and the middle of the night on the American west coast.
- Check every participant's local time before offering a slot. The time zone converter shows them side by side, and our guide to scheduling across time zones covers the common mistakes.
- Group remote meetings into the hours that suit the remote experts, rather than scattering them across the day.
- Put the event's time zone in every confirmation, with the remote participant's local time where it differs.
Planning these early is part of the event meeting timeline: decide which experts will join remotely when you decide who travels.
When to say no to hybrid
Some meetings should stay in person, or wait:
- Relationship meetings with senior people, where being in the room is the point.
- Sensitive conversations, where a remote participant in an unknown setting makes people guarded.
- Meetings where the room cannot support it, such as a busy stand with no quiet corner. A poor connection does more harm than a short delay.
When the setup or the subject is wrong for hybrid, it is better to book a proper meeting for later than to hold a frustrating one now.
CallShark is being built to schedule in-person and remote participants together, with each person's time zone and the room's setup part of the booking. The product is temporarily down.