Tools to put on a virtual convention?
August 30, 2020 4:37 PM Subscribe
What tools are useful and good for putting on a small (from dozens to about a thousand attendees) convention? Asking about this for niches where there is very little budget, and admission would be free or donation only.
I’m looking for insights on tools you may have used either as an attendee or running a convention. Or tools that a friend has raved about.
While the major tools like Zoom, Wordpress, Eventbrite, and High Fidelity, are well covered, what else would be worth evaluating?
For example, Conference Scheduler looks like a good plugin for Wordpress to create workshop schedules, are there others which are better?
I’m looking for insights on tools you may have used either as an attendee or running a convention. Or tools that a friend has raved about.
While the major tools like Zoom, Wordpress, Eventbrite, and High Fidelity, are well covered, what else would be worth evaluating?
For example, Conference Scheduler looks like a good plugin for Wordpress to create workshop schedules, are there others which are better?
I would take a look at Crowdcast.io! I was a speaker this weekend in a conference using Crowdcast and found the experience relatively smooth. It instantly creates replays/video recordings, moves the users between sessions smoothly, and has a pleasant UI.
My only point of frustration is that it's not the most conducive to individual or small group conversations, which is a bummer b/c the little social interactions in a conference are so high value. The organizers and speakers had a Slack and we found it very helpful, but everyone else was more on their own/used Twitter to engage/etc. I think pairing with Slack (or Discord) would be a pretty complete package (+1 to Candleman)
posted by elephantsvanish at 7:29 PM on August 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
My only point of frustration is that it's not the most conducive to individual or small group conversations, which is a bummer b/c the little social interactions in a conference are so high value. The organizers and speakers had a Slack and we found it very helpful, but everyone else was more on their own/used Twitter to engage/etc. I think pairing with Slack (or Discord) would be a pretty complete package (+1 to Candleman)
posted by elephantsvanish at 7:29 PM on August 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also it depends somewhat on the norms in your niche, but I quite like encouraging speakers to share slides via GitHub if your events have anything to do with tech, and even hosting the entire conference schedule and details via a WordPress or simpler GitHub Pages or similar. I see conferences invest in fancier catalog views for their schedules with lots of tagging and metadata, but if your scale is non-giant, I think simple websites are easier to navigate.
posted by elephantsvanish at 7:36 PM on August 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by elephantsvanish at 7:36 PM on August 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I recently presented at a virtual conference with several hundred attendees and multiple speakers - using a platform called BigMarker. I hadn't used it before, but it worked well and everything ran smoothly.
posted by bifter at 12:32 AM on September 1, 2020
posted by bifter at 12:32 AM on September 1, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
One big trend is to have the videos pre-recorded so as to avoid live glitches.
posted by Candleman at 5:45 PM on August 30, 2020