Why Adding a Virtual Component is like an Insurance Policy for your Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair

Planning anything this year has felt a little frivolous. Will it happen? Won’t it? Is it safe? Will they show up? Is it a bad idea? It’s like we’re all watching a TV dating drama unfold, and we’re also one of the contestants. So if you’re planning an indoor, holiday arts and crafts fair during COVID-19, please accept this rose of advice: add a virtual component (aka make it a hybrid event)!

Planning a hybrid event is like an insurance policy for your in-person holiday arts and crafts fair

What is a hybrid event?

Part virtual, part in-person, hybrid events give event planners, vendors, sponsors and attendees the best of both worlds. That’s true regardless – pandemic or not. What’s really special about hybrid events right now is that they’re the equivalent of an insurance policy for your holiday event planning.

Walk me through this winter wonderland.

Okay, say you’re planning your annual holiday craft fair. You have your core list of exhibitors and your lineup of live entertainment – you already know the formula for a successful in-person event. Now it’s time to add a robust virtual component.

• Give each of your vendors a digital “booth” space where they can upload photos and videos and a link to their website.
• Work with a production company that can manage an exciting live stream of cookie decorating, carolling, party-hosting experts, etc.
• Think beyond the physical location of your event – maybe a sponsor wants to do a virtual tour of their drive-through lights display, or a vendor wants to do a latkes cooking demo.
• Enable face-to-face virtual connection opportunities – perhaps a virtual visit with Santa or an instructor-led dance lesson. 
• The more creative you and your vendors and sponsors can get, the more everyone will get out of it – attracting a broader and more engaged in-person and virtual audience.

The best part?

Now that you have everything planned with a virtual audience in mind, it’s far less disappointing (and costly) if in-person attendance becomes impossible to pull off safely. So if your community has a surge in cases, your venue has to cancel, there’s a statewide mandate or some other wild, unforeseen 2020-like bizarreness happens, your show will go on.

The more excitement you’ve built with your vendors and sponsors around the new virtual event components, the better. They’ll have an easier time seeing the value in their investment, even without the traditional in-person elements.

Instead of scrambling to figure out a plan B, you can continue expanding on half of your original plan A. So go ahead, plan with confidence! And make the holidays extra happy with a hybrid holiday arts and crafts fair.