IDRF is an annual offline e-commerce forum. This year participants and speakers discussed the main changes in online retail market. They studied cases of top marketplaces (OZON, Yandex.Market, Wildberries, etc.) and discussed how to work in covid-new reality.

A task

One month before the event when the forum was planned to be offline and online, no strict quarantine was introduced. Security measures were stepped up and in the end it was decided to completely switch to online. This was our first experience in holding a large-scale digital event.

The event was successfully held on Zeen, our online event platform.

Why Zeen?

- Customization of the interface and platform functionality

- Lots of tools for working and keeping the audience's attention: voting opportunities, polls, posting quotes from the speech of speakers, commentators to engage viewers in the dialogue.

 

Training

It wasn't technically easy to bring more than 60 speakers together on one platform, and it took us a long time to do so. We provided each with a broadcast kit: a branded background, a webcam and lights, and wired Internet adapters for a more stable connection.
Speaker training was done in conjunction with the public speaking bureau. Taking into account the specifics of speaking to an online audience in a series of master classes on how to handle presentation embarassments and be able to explain, convince, and inspire.

Event

Online events is a brand new experience, so it's important to pay attention to the psychology and needs of the Users. We are going to hold the attention and give the opportunity to communicate with the speakers and other participants. To do this, we carefully worked to eliminate the engagement block and added a lot of activities. There were 5 concurrent streams, all broadcatsed from different conference rooms, with speakers, master classes, startup pitching, and panel discussions.

Results

We managed to:

We were able to:
Attract 7,000 participants from 2,000 companies
Attract 61 speakers from four countries
Listen to 28 startups
Presented 9 E-Retail Tech Awards
Get more than 265,000 views of the event stream

Conclude that the following tools really worked at online events:
Being able to ask a speaker questions
A possibility of rewinding to any place in the broadcast
A possibility of befriending speakers immediately on social media.
Presenting entertaining content, even at the business event
A possibility of "upgrading" tickets during the event to enhance the functionality and receive additional benefits
Using online bars and other networking opportunities