Why do we charge for hybrid meetings?
We’ve had ongoing discussions about providing hybrid attendance to our events including a discussion at our most recent Council Meeting as well as our Trustee and Exec meetings.
You’ve told us you would really like us to continue providing hybrid as we live in uncertain times with strikes impacting travel and cover at work, and illness impacting participants, colleagues and dependents. Being able to flex allows more of you to attend and stops you from missing out.
And the data bears this out:
- At our 68th Congress in Birmingham 13% registered to attend virtually but on the first day a third of our audience was online
- At our recent Joint Radiology and National Training days, half the audiences were online.
Some of you have asked why we charge a similar price for virtual attendance of hybrid events as face-to-face. Isn’t it just a case of joining a Zoom meeting?
So why do we charge for virtual attendance of our hybrid events?
- We do use Zoom but pay for a license which covers hosting meetings and webinars. We could also use MS Teams or Google Meet but members have asked us to use Zoom.
- To deliver a hybrid meeting requires hiring more equipment and technicians. We could just use a laptop but this can’t capture interaction in the meeting.
- We still have to cover the cost of face-to-face if we go ahead and you can’t join in person.
- There is more preparation and planning involved operationally, including: hiring the room earlier for set-up, setting up separate registration for virtual, providing online resources such as posters, tech-checking remote speakers in advance, supporting and monitoring delegates joining remotely.
The pictures show our recent joint meeting with BSPR and the equipment and technicians we hired to make the meeting hybrid. A train strike was announced two weeks before the meeting so half our audience as well as some presenters were online.
We hope this helps explain why we are charging for virtual attendance to our hybrid events. Do get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions about our meetings.
Shan Teo, Digital Manager