A hybrid conference is one event with two rooms, the venue and the stream, and the mistake that sinks most of them is planning the venue event and then pointing a camera at it. The online delegate has a different day: shorter sessions, no coffee break with anyone, no exhibition, and a screen that makes a panel of five unreadable. This page is written for the organiser who has been asked to make this year's conference hybrid: which sessions belong on the stream and which do not, what the online ticket is worth against the in-person one, what the AV and staging line becomes, how the badge and catering counts split, and how the programme builder and budget template on this site take a hybrid event. It publishes no platform comparison: the stream is a vendor's job, and the plan is yours.
Decide which sessions are streamed, not whether the event is
Keynotes and plenaries stream well: one speaker, one camera, a slide deck. Breakout workshops with tables and flipcharts do not, and a hybrid virtual conference that streams every room streams a lot of backs of heads. The usual shape is the plenary programme plus one or two breakout tracks online, with the rest in-person only, and the online ticket priced for what it actually includes. The programme builder on this site works the slots; mark the streamed ones and the AV line in the budget follows.
Two tickets, and the online one is not half price by accident
The online delegate gets the streamed sessions, the recordings and whatever the platform allows for questions, and none of the catering, the exhibition or the room. The price should reflect that bundle rather than a fraction picked to look reasonable, and the budget template should carry the two ticket types as separate income lines with their own expected counts. An online ticket that undercuts the in-person one by too much moves delegates online, and the venue minimum does not move with them.
The AV line doubles, and the run of show gets a second column
Streaming a plenary needs cameras, a vision mixer, a sound feed from the room mix, an encoder and a person watching the platform, all on top of the in-room AV. It is the single largest cost a hybrid conference adds and it belongs in the budget from the first draft, not as a quote in the last month. The run of show gains a column for what the online audience sees during breaks, room changes and the sponsor slots, because a black screen for fifteen minutes is an online delegate who has left.
Badges, catering and the numbers that split
Badges and lanyards are for the people in the building; catering is per in-person delegate per day; the platform licence is often per online delegate. The badge order and the budget template on this site take the in-person count, and the online count sits against the platform line and the online ticket income. A hybrid event therefore has two delegate counts and two break-even figures, and the plan should say both out loud.
Questions people ask about hybrid conferences
Should we record sessions for delegates who paid for the room?
Usually yes, and it is the cheapest benefit a hybrid setup adds: the in-person delegate who was in the other track gets the recording. Say in the ticket terms what is recorded and for how long it is available.
How many online delegates should we plan for?
Fewer than the platform vendor suggests. Online attendance is easy to buy and easy to abandon, and a first hybrid edition that plans on a modest online count and a realistic in-person count is the one whose budget closes. Treat online income as upside until you have a prior year.
Does Lanyardo run the stream?
No. Lanyardo keeps the programme, the sessions, the delegates and the budget, and works the grid, the badges and the break-even; the stream is your AV company's or your platform's. Which sessions are streamed is a field on the session in Pro, so the run of show and the AV line follow it.