Data Innovation Summit 2021How Hyperight Disrupted the Event Industry By Organizing the First True Hybrid Event in the Nordics Using Agorify?October 24, 2021

Recently the Swedish-based event and media company Hyperight organized its first True Hybrid event. The company used Agorify to execute the first big hybrid event in the Nordic region - Data Innovation Summit and, along with that, disrupted the event industry in general.

At the same time, Data Innovation Summit is also the biggest True Hybrid event executed through Agorify until the present moment. So let’s dive in and see how Agorify helped Hyperight give DIS 2021 a True Hybrid dimension.

About Data Innovation Summit

Data Innovation Summit is an annual Swedish-based event that first started in 2016 and ever since has been considered to be the largest and most influential annual Data and AI event in the Nordics and beyond. Its goal is to bring together the most innovative minds, enterprise practitioners, technology providers, start-up innovators and academics who are working with Data Science, Big Data, ML, AI, Data Management, Data Engineering, IoT and Analytics in one place to discuss ways to accelerate AI-Driven Transformation throughout companies, industries and public organizations.

The event is designed in a way to address all the aspects of Data-Driven and AI-ready business in a rather complex format that includes, 6 stages with over 100 presentation in total, 63 demos, hundreds of video one to one meetings, data roundtables, room presentations, in-between session commercials, entertainment live and broadcasted party, and external Data Octagon program streamed live on YouTube, LinkedIn and in Agorify.

In fact, this year for the first time in its history, Data Innovation Summit was organized in a hybrid format giving the event both, onsite (in Kistamässan, Stockholm) and online dimensions. The in-person event was also executed under the latest Safe Event and Sustainability company protocols. Hyperight considers those two protocols to be the future of in-person events - low contact and paperless events.

For executing Data Innovation Summit 2021 in a hybrid format, the event organizers team used Agorify's True Hybrid solution in order to provide its onsite and online attendees with an equal experience.

DIS 2021’s Ambition to Disrupt the Hybrid Event Industry in Sweden

DIS’ journey with Agorify started three years ago when they first used Agorify’s Self Check-In and Badge Printing solution for providing attendees with a smooth registration process on their onsite event. The ambition of the organizers at the time was to make the self check-in process as short as 30 seconds per person (2000 attendees attending), from door to badge in hand. The average time per person calculated during the event was 22 seconds.

A year later, when the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world in 2020, for the first time in its history DIS was organized in a fully online format.The Hyperight team used Agorify’s online events solution for live streaming sessions, streaming pre-recorded sessions, on-demand content, Q&A chats, etc. In total close to 9500 min or 158 hours of content was loaded and live-streamed through Agorify over the three-day event. The attendees had to choose between 80 sessions excluding one-to-one meetings, data clinic round tables and Data Octagon panels. In total, online visitors have streamed close to 567 000 minutes or 9446 hours of content during the event days and the post-event on-demand period.

Upon the realization that Agorify can equally help them execute and monetize both onsite and online events, this year the Hyperight team decided to disrupt the market and organize DIS 2021 in a hybrid format using our True Hybrid solution.

DIS 2021 Successfully Met the Four Ultimate Goals Hyperight Has Set In Advanced

First and foremost, the reason why DIS 2021 was organized in a True Hybrid format is to revolutionize the event industry in the Nordics and to prove all the benefits that come with hybrid events.

“The MICE industry is close to a 1.5$ trillion industry with over 1.1 billion people attending events in any shape, format and size per year. At the same time the MICE industry is the least digitalized and data industry in the world, providing the same experience to its visitors for over 100 years, disregarding the fact that people are more digital native these days and that the technology has truly evolved. The pandemic gave us a great opportunity to change the way attendees experience events. It is time to move from transient event experiences and provide more long-lasting and meaningful moments to our visitors.” - says Goran Cvetanovski, CEO of Hyperight.

One of the major benefits Hyperight encountered in hybrid events is the possibility to provide a continuous experience as opposed to a transient. What does this mean? Onsite events are very short-lived. The production process might take months, but their execution only lasts for a few hours or a few days as the content and experience itself usually cannot be revived.

On the other hand, by executing a True Hybrid event using a platform such as Agorify the whole experience is continuous as the event could be attended onsite, online, live, and on-demand. In other words, it opens the possibility of being attended by those who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend the event because of their location, time, and budget.

The third ultimate goal that DIS 2021 managed to achieve by organizing a True Hybrid event is to make it as paperless as possible and along with that as sustainable as possible, too. By using Agorify’s Self Check-In and Badge Printing Solution, Hyperight minimized the use of paper that otherwise might be used to print and reprint badges, as well as plastic folders, and lanyards.

In addition, considering that the attendees were recommended to use the Agorify app throughout the entire event in order to fully experience the hybrid dimension of the event, DIS 2021’s agenda was only available digitally - on the app and on the four TV screens in the expo area. Thus, no paper was used for this process at all either.

By using Agorify, Hyperight also minimized the use of any paper that otherwise might be used for one-time informative materials, exhibitor marketing materials, notebooks, pens and much more. Instead, all of this was loaded into the platform, easily reached by any attendees prior, during and after the event. This is crucial as the Hyperight team is aware that the future of the world is sustainability just as the future of the event industry is hybrid. The two are closely connected; hybrid events directly contribute to sustainability which is a much bigger and broader cause that concerns the entire world.

Finally, last but not least, by using Agorify and executing the event in a True Hybrid format, Hyperight managed to make DIS 2021 safer for its attendees in terms of the pandemic. The way this was achieved was through the previously mentioned Self Check-In & Badge Printing which was completely contactless, low contact exhibition booth and area of 5sqm density space per person, by digitizing the agenda through the Agorify app and, of course, by splitting the audience and the speakers into onsite and online.

Which Agorify features were used during Data Innovation Summit 2021?

Self Check-In and Badge Printing

There are two things that could never be reversed: time and first impressions. In the event industry, the first impression is the registration process.

The good thing is that thanks to technology, the event organizers could easily speed up the registration process and provide their attendees with a much pleasant experience. To do that, DIS 2021 used Agorify’s Self Check-In and Badge Printing solution.

Onsite attendees were previously sent an invitation email with a QR code and a reminder to download the Agorify app that is available on Android App Store and Apple App Store.

On the venue, there were 6 self-check-ins where attendees could scan their QR code from their email or from the Agorify app. The DIS 2021 team was there to answer their questions and guide them through the process.

Onsite to Online Streaming

One of the most crucial aspects of True Hybrid events is the possibility to offer remote attendees the opportunity to watch everything that is going on onsite. DIS 2021 had 7 parallel sessions including the Data Octagon, some of them having speakers presenting in-person and others online (live and prerecorded).

“It was great to hear that some of the attendees who came a little bit later in the morning were able to follow the program on the way to the venue, therefore not missing anything from the program” - continued Goran.

By connecting a professional broadcasting system with Agorify, the AV technicians live-streamed the onsite sessions to the remote attendees who were able to use the Q&A chat and communicate with the onsite speakers as well.

Online to Onsite Streaming

Some of the speakers were hosting their sessions remotely as well. Therefore, just as the onsite sessions were streamed online, the online sessions hosted by those speakers were also live-streamed onsite with a projector.

For this, the team of Hyperight used Agorify’s built-in and very simple web-based broadcasting solution we call Green Room.

Digital Agenda

As already stated, one of the key driving factors that DIS 2021 had for itself is to be as paperless as possible. To achieve this, the agenda provided was fully in a digital format.

It was available both through the Agorify app and on the TV screens placed in the expo area.

Exhibitor Online Booths

Despite being present onsite, exhibitors also had online booths - giving them the opportunity to communicate with prominent decision-makers regardless of whether they attended the event onsite or online.

Moreover, they also received online exposure by their logos being displayed on Agorify’s tier banners in the online part of the event.

Exhibitor’s Silent Room

Speaking of exhibitor’s features, Agorify also has a built-in Silent Room which represents a digital twin of the silent headphones that exhibitors usually use in their expo area during big events.

There are two main benefits of using Agorify’s Silent Room instead of doing an expo with silent headphones:

1. Silent headphones are quite expensive and exhibitors should have at least 20 or even more, depending on how big the event is.
2. There are a number of technical issues that might arise when using more silent headphones in the same space such as RF interference.

Agorify’s Exhibitor Booth

Agorify was also one of the exhibitors on DIS 2021. On our booth, we displayed how live streaming, chatting and pre-recorded sessions of DIS 2021 look like within our platform. We also talked with a number of attendees and explained to them the features and the benefits of our True Hybrid platform.

At our online booth, attendees were able to learn more about us, download our “How to Monetize True Hybrid Events“ ebook and book a demo with us.

To Wrap Up

Aiming to level up the data industry and the event industry at the same time, Hyperight indeed did a bold move in executing the first True Hybrid event in the Nordics. The team of Hyperight, not only managed to execute DIS 2021 in an innovative way and make it more engaging for all participants, but it could be also said that they determined the future of the event industry in the Nordics.

By organizing and monetizing the first True Hybrid event in the region, Hyperight disrupted the industry by showing it all the benefits that these types of events can bring:

• Offer continuous experience as opposed to transient
• Offers extra ways for monetization
• More sustainable and safe
• More flexible for both attendees and speakers in terms of time, location and budget

Upon successfully executing DIS 2021 in a True Hybrid format using Agorify, the Hyperight team has already started planning their next True Hybrid events. Their ultimate goal is to spread awareness of the benefits of True Hybrid events and to prove that the future of the event industry is undoubtedly hybrid.

About Agorify

Agorify is a True Hybrid event platform that aims to revolutionize the event tech industry. By our definition, a True Hybrid event is a conference, exhibition, seminar, concert, or any other meeting where participants can partake, choose between, or instantly and effortlessly switch from, onsite to online event experience without losing any event feature or benefit.

Hence, our solutions include, but are not limited to Self Check-In Registration and Badge Printing, Native-Live Streaming, Simulated Streaming, Virtual Round Tables, Breakout Rooms, App Badge Scanning, Silent Room, Online Exhibitor Booths, Digital Agenda, etc.

Interested in learning more about us? Request a demo.