I’m honoured to be named Winner of the Entrepreneur/Founder award presented by Atlassian at the Women Leading Tech Awards 2023!
When the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, many industries faced unprecedented challenges that saw too many businesses crumble, struggling to stay afloat and having to re-invent themselves to surge ahead.
While the pandemic was viewed as a disaster for many in the events industry, and despite the outlook for traditional events and conferences – a cornerstone of our business revenue – evaporating overnight, at Synergy Effect we approached this as an opportunity to reimagine the delivery of events in online spaces. We did this with the vision to create a new sustainable and inclusive approach to future forward events. Our vision was – and is – driven by a focus to reach a far greater audience returning greater ROI, sustainability and inclusivity underpinned by cutting edge technology.
Did you know?
The carbon footprint of the traditional event industry is in line with the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire United States, responsible for more than 10% of global CO2. Online events have the potential to reduce this environmental cost by 95%. We are not saying don’t have your events face-to-face, but more expand your thinking out of just traditional to include hybrid/online in your marketing strategy.
Traditional events are, by definition, exclusive – due to the economics of flying everyone to one place, multi-night accommodation, multi-meal food, beverage and entertainment – not everyone can afford to attend and only a select team might be sent, rather than the whole company. With online and hybrid, you can invite your entire regional or international team.
We wanted our new approach to change the future of how events are held.
We quickly began to code and create immersive and experiential online branded spaces for our clients to hold their events in – which could either be held completely online, or expanded to multi-site venues located in key towns and cities where their people were located.
Our simultaneous multi-site hybrid event model, the online solution, was born.
Reimagining road shows…
In late 2019, Ruth and her team at Synergy Effect were in planning for a five-city roadshow across Australia and New Zealand, then COVID-19 happened. A total of 250-400 guests were expected to attend across all events and the challenge was to quickly move the series online while ensuring top-quality brand impact, enhanced speaker interactivity and an immersive audience experience akin to what guests would experience in-person.
The end result? Over 1000 guests attended, more than doubling the reach for a reduced budget. Guests reported the experience exceeded expectations and was the same or better than an in-person event. Our client was so impressed with the quality, they added two extra events to the series to capture the industry interest and appointed us to create additional online and hybrid events in 2020 and 2021. Click here to read this case study
No need to fly for a National Conference…
In 2021, with border closures ongoing and travel still limited, a building industry client remained committed to bringing its nationally dispersed people together for a National Conference and Awards Night.
We proposed simultaneous face to face events in key capital cities, linking each venue with the speakers, presentations and interactive social and participation methods so everyone was part of the same experience. Sessions took several formats including a mix of live and pre-recorded seminars, panel discussions and VIP speakers. Pre-recorded content featured people across the business – factory floor, manufacturing plant, line managers, middle-management – recorded in real-world manufacturing and building industry environments. Live speakers were on-stage in one location and beamed simultaneously to national state audiences. Plus, international keynote speakers were brought in live from USA.
Every venue had a local host and Q&A’s/feedback was invited after every session, live crosses to each venue took place throughout the night, and guests were able to constantly engage and feedback through the dedicated event app.
The result? Over 400 staff joined the hybrid multi-site conference and awards night celebrations. Feedback was that this was the most inclusive National Conference our client had ever held, both through staff attendance and the opportunity to capture and showcase content presented by so many different people in the company. Click here to read this case study
It only gets better…
In late 2022, we were thrilled to be awarded Best National Live or Hybrid Event at the Australian Event Awards for our simultaneous multi-site hybrid event, First Impressions by Galderma – which saw more than 5,000 delegates located in 15 cities across the JPAC region attend four different events over three days, with presentations from 13 international speakers. Read more about our First Impressions hybrid multisite event, CLICK HERE.
Looking to the future
From the moment we leapt into online events, I knew this would be the new cornerstone for Synergy Effect. Our whole team was – and is – so excited and energised by this whole new world of event and immersive brand experience possibility.
Today, at Synergy Effect, our approach to events is completely deconstructed. Traditionally, high end content production, the type delivered through our online and hybrid events, required huge production studios, sophisticated hardware and large, highly experienced crews – in short, an expensive exercise, well beyond the budgets of all but the very largest events.
However, using our cutting edge technology, we have streamlined these processes, and with this, high value presentations are now within reach of any organisation at a fraction of the cost; a whole world of speaker options is opened to planners because no one has to travel; ALL your people can attend and contribute, no matter where they are; plus, your events can contribute to enhancing the sustainability of your business.
That’s the Synergy Effect!
Warm regards,
Ruth Hirst
Director of Synergy Effect
