Virtual Conference Platform

What a virtual conference needs from its platform

A conference is more than sessions. Check that the platform covers each of these before you look at design or price:

• Registration and ticketing

  Free and paid tickets, registration questions and confirmations, so attendees arrive with an account already made.

• A program attendees can navigate

  A schedule with tracks and speakers, where people can pick sessions and build their own agenda.

• Live and recorded sessions

  Presentations, panels and workshops streamed live, with recordings available afterwards for people in other time zones.

• Interaction in each session

  Questions with upvoting, polls and chat, moderated by someone on your team.

• Networking

  Ways for attendees to meet: one-to-one meetings, roundtables and open discussion rooms.

• A place for sponsors and exhibitors

  Virtual booths where companies present and capture leads, so sponsors have a reason to pay.

• Analytics

  Who registered, who attended which session and how engaged they were, so you can report to sponsors and plan the next edition.

Virtual conference platform vs. webinar tool vs. meeting app

The tool you already use may be enough for a single talk. It rarely is for a conference:

A checklist for scoring platforms

Score every vendor on the same list, ideally after a live demo where you run one of your own sessions. Copy this, replace the brackets with your needs and give each line a mark out of five.

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PLATFORM CHECKLIST
Event: [Name]   Dates: [Dates]   Expected attendees: [Number]   Sessions: [Number]   Time zones: [List]
Vendor: [Name]   Scored by: [Name]   Date: [Date]
Score each line 0 (missing) to 5 (excellent). Mark MUST for deal-breakers.

REGISTRATION
[ ] Free and paid tickets  MUST
[ ] Registration questions and promo codes
[ ] Confirmation and reminder emails
[ ] Single sign-on if our organization needs it

SESSIONS
[ ] Live sessions with screen sharing  MUST
[ ] Recording and on-demand replay  MUST
[ ] Break-out rooms or workshops
[ ] Live streaming from our streaming tool
[ ] Captions or interpretation for [languages]

INTERACTION
[ ] Moderated Q&A with upvoting
[ ] Live polls
[ ] Chat and moderator controls

NETWORKING
[ ] One-to-one meetings between attendees
[ ] Roundtables or discussion rooms
[ ] Attendee profiles and messaging

SPONSORS AND EXHIBITORS
[ ] Virtual booths with video and documents
[ ] Lead capture for exhibitors
[ ] Sponsor visibility in the program

REPORTING
[ ] Attendance by session
[ ] Engagement and survey results
[ ] Data export to [CRM or email tool]

PRACTICAL
[ ] Test event or sandbox before we commit
[ ] Support during the live event, with response times
[ ] Total cost with every fee shown: [Amount]
[ ] Hybrid option if we add a live venue later

TOTAL SCORE: [Number]   MUST items all met: [Yes / No]   Notes: [Text]

How to run a virtual conference, step by step

The platform carries the event, but the program still has to be good. For the longer how-to, see our guide to hosting a virtual event. These are the conference-specific steps:

1. 1

   Set the goal and the audience

   Decide whether the conference is for education, leads, community or revenue, and who must attend for it to count as a success.

   How to host a virtual event
2. 2

   Plan the program for a screen

   Keep sessions shorter than in a hall, build in breaks, and put networking in the schedule rather than hoping it happens.

3. 3

   Choose the platform with the checklist

   Run a demo with your own content, and ask for a test event before you sign.

4. 4

   Open registration and promote

   Build the registration page, set tickets, and promote to your list, speakers and sponsors. Send reminders that include the time in the reader's time zone.

5. 5

   Brief and rehearse speakers

   Every speaker joins a full technical rehearsal covering audio, camera, slides and how questions will be handled.

6. 6

   Staff the live event

   Assign a host per track, a moderator for questions, and someone to answer attendees' technical problems in real time.

7. 7

   Run the networking

   Open meeting slots and roundtables on a published timetable and announce them in the sessions.

8. 8

   Follow up

   Send recordings, a survey and sponsor reports within a week, while the event is fresh.

Do you need an app as well as a platform?

Many attendees join sessions on a laptop but keep the schedule, notifications and networking on a phone. If your conference also has a live element, an event app saves you from running two products. Our conference app guide covers what to look for.

• Read the conference app guide

  What a conference app should do before, during and after the event, and how to pick one.

  Conference app guide

Virtual conferences on Eventdex

Eventdex runs a virtual or hybrid conference from one platform: registration, sessions, booths and meetings. It is not a plug-in for a single webinar. Here is what its own pages say it covers:

• Sessions, workshops and panels

  Run workshops, panel discussions and webinars in the virtual meeting app, with recording, screen sharing and breakout room designs.

  Virtual event platform

• Virtual booths and roundtables

  Virtual exhibitor booths, virtual roundtables and Clubhouse-style audio and video rooms.

  Virtual conference solution

• AI-matched meetings

  One-to-one business meetings scheduled by AI matchmaking, plus speed networking rounds.

  Virtual speed networking

• Registration and ticketing

  Registration pages, ticket types and payments, with 0% commission ticketing available.

  Event registration software

• Hybrid conferences

  Run an in-person and an online audience from one schedule when the conference has a live venue.

  Hybrid event platform

• Streaming and captions

  Integrations for live streaming, including StreamYard, Restream, Zoom and Mux, and for live captions and interpretation through Interprefy.

  Integrations