Location
Price, UT
Start Date
5-14-2025 9:00 AM
Description
Hybrid events where communities are connected through both in person and online spaces have simultaneously grown in popularity and gotten a bad reputation. While hybrid events have been around for decades, they gained significant traction with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase accessibility for attendees to accommodate diverse needs. Although hybrid events can be beneficial to many, they are not simple to execute. With the increase in hybrid events has come frustration with the low quality interactions between in person and online attendees leading to isolation, technology challenges, and low productivity. We argue the positive affordances of hybrid community-based events outweigh the negative when considering the accessibility and inclusivity that these events foster and that these challenges can be overcome by intentional planning and facilitation. In this presentation we discuss the value of hybrid events using the Bear River Region (BRR) LGBTQ+ Community Coalition as a case study. This BRR Coalition is dedicated to improving health equity and holistic well-being for members of the LGBTQ+ community in northern Utah. In the BRR Coalition we use hybrid meetings and events to connect community members from all across northern Utah to participate. In this tutorial, we share three best practices for planning and facilitating hybrid events, including setting expectations, assigning roles and tasks, and technology strategies through the BRR Coalition as an example. This interactive tutorial will allow participants to share their experiences with hybrid events and brainstorm expectations, roles, and technology strategies for hybrid events they hope to run.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Community-Based Learning Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Medicine and Health Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Social Work Commons
Planning and facilitating hybrid meetings to support relationality during coalition building
Price, UT
Hybrid events where communities are connected through both in person and online spaces have simultaneously grown in popularity and gotten a bad reputation. While hybrid events have been around for decades, they gained significant traction with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase accessibility for attendees to accommodate diverse needs. Although hybrid events can be beneficial to many, they are not simple to execute. With the increase in hybrid events has come frustration with the low quality interactions between in person and online attendees leading to isolation, technology challenges, and low productivity. We argue the positive affordances of hybrid community-based events outweigh the negative when considering the accessibility and inclusivity that these events foster and that these challenges can be overcome by intentional planning and facilitation. In this presentation we discuss the value of hybrid events using the Bear River Region (BRR) LGBTQ+ Community Coalition as a case study. This BRR Coalition is dedicated to improving health equity and holistic well-being for members of the LGBTQ+ community in northern Utah. In the BRR Coalition we use hybrid meetings and events to connect community members from all across northern Utah to participate. In this tutorial, we share three best practices for planning and facilitating hybrid events, including setting expectations, assigning roles and tasks, and technology strategies through the BRR Coalition as an example. This interactive tutorial will allow participants to share their experiences with hybrid events and brainstorm expectations, roles, and technology strategies for hybrid events they hope to run.