7 tips for successful online events

Online events have earned a permanent place in the event mix. Whether the driver is a genuinely national or international audience, the environmental impact of travel, the cost efficiency of a virtual format, or simply giving people who cannot travel a way to participate, purely online events are no longer a stopgap. They are a first-choice format for many organisations we work with.

The challenge is that online events are still often designed as though they are broadcast television, with a passive audience watching from home. That is where they go wrong. The best online events treat the screen as a room in its own right, with the same care for atmosphere, energy, and audience interaction as any live venue.

If you are producing an event that will run fully online (rather than hybrid), here are seven tactics we use to keep attendees engaged from start to finish. For events with an in-person component alongside the stream, our companion post on the benefits of running hybrid events and our guide to common hybrid event mistakes to avoid cover that ground.

1. Ease into it

Not every event needs to open with a formal welcome and an agenda slide. A gentle warm-up activity, an opening act, or a short mindfulness moment can help attendees settle into the space and shift out of whatever they were doing five minutes before they logged in.

We kicked off the #ColourFULL Conference for Winitha Bonney with a morning yoga class from Grounded with Gratitude Yoga. Whatever your version of that looks like, a soft opening earns you real engagement across the sessions that follow.

2. Add humour with the right MC

A well-chosen host lifts an online event in the same way it lifts a live one, sometimes more so, because the MC is doing a lot of the emotional heavy lifting that would ordinarily come from the room. Booking an entertaining, experienced MC helps attract attendees to the event in the first place, and keeps energy high once they are on.

We produced Hanging Local Virtual, a series of online cooking challenges with comedians and popular chefs for Western Melbourne Tourism and Victoria University, to keep students connected. We also produced the Dean’s Honours Awards and Prizes Night for the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, with comedian Lauren Bok co-hosting a trivia session as part of the programme.

For more on choosing an MC that fits your event and audience, see our post on 3 tips to help choose your event MC.

3. Content is king

Say goodbye to standard slide decks. Well-planned, visually strong content is what stops attendees quietly switching to another tab. Your programme content should reflect your brand personality, hold visual interest, and vary in format across the day.

Our video production team can create professionally designed presentations, show reels, and interstitial video content with captions, motion, and audio treatment that lift the standard of what appears on screen. For more on how video specifically anchors an online programme, see our post on event video production.

4. Give attendees options

Every guest arrives at an online event looking for something slightly different. Some are there to listen. Some are there to network. Some are there to challenge the speakers and be challenged in return. A well-designed online event gives all of those people something meaningful to do.

Offer multiple ways to participate. Live chat. Private messaging between attendees. Small-group breakout rooms. Session-level Q&A. Live polling. Reaction feeds. When attendees can choose how and when to engage, they stay in the event much longer.

Our Future Events Lab platform is built around exactly this kind of flexibility, with layered interactivity tools that let each attendee shape their own experience of the event.

5. Include mini breaks

Longer online events (anything over about two hours) genuinely need breaks. Screen fatigue is real, and attention drops sharply if the programme runs straight through.

Design short breaks between sessions or topic blocks. Fill them with something better than a static “we’ll be back at 2 pm” screen. A short entertainment segment, a pre-recorded interstitial video, a curated musical break, or a scheduled activity all work well. Half-time entertainment (think Superbowl scale, done at your event’s own scale) is one of the strongest engagement moves in an online programme. Reminders to stretch, drink water, take a proper break from the screen, and step outside are also appropriate and appreciated, particularly on multi-day programmes.

6. Interactive segments

Audience participation is one of the most reliable ways to keep an online audience engaged. We look for interactive moments throughout the day: audience polls, structured Q&A, live discussions, quizzes, competitions, and pre-event activities that build anticipation.

For the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT) Awards Night, we held a virtual red carpet where guests showed off their outfits before the ceremony began. This pre-event activity created a relaxed mood and encouraged guests to be more active in the comment box throughout the awards ceremony.

7. Close with something worth staying for

Do not let your event trail off. Close it with something people will want to be present for.

An uplifting closing act (a live DJ set, a musical performance, a comedian, a magician) is a lovely way to thank attendees for their time and to send them off in a good mood. It supports the performing arts industry, which we care about, and it makes the event genuinely memorable rather than just informative. At UoM’s FEIT Awards, DJ Carly closed the night with a live DJ set.

The best online events feel designed for the screen

Online events are not diminished versions of in-person ones. They are their own format, with their own strengths and their own creative possibilities. Treat the online audience as the primary audience (because they are), design for the screen from day one, and the result is an event that people willingly clear their calendar for.

Since 2013, JTPM has delivered more than 1,200 events across Australia, and a significant number of those have been fully online or hybrid programmes with attendees and speakers spread across time zones. Our Innovate 4 Cities (UN-Habitat) 2024 case study shows what integrated digital delivery looks like at scale.

Ready to plan a better online event?

If you would like a hand producing a fully online or virtual event, our team at JTPM offers full-service event management in Melbourne and Australia-wide delivery, including digital events, event technology, video production, and PCO support under one roof.

Book a design session with us, or get in touch to start the conversation.