Planning a Campus Event? Here’s How to Go Virtual With Zoom Events

Whether you’re preparing for end-of-year festivities like commencement or alumni gatherings, or planning ahead for next year’s new student orientation, many institutions are looking to reach a wider audience through virtual and hybrid event experiences.

Virtual and hybrid campus events allow families to connect with their students from afar, enable guest speakers to join from all over the world, and keep alumni engaged even when they’re no longer close to campus. Zoom Events provides an all-in-one platform for campus event planners to create, market, manage, and host multi-session, multi-day conferences or single-session events of any size or scale.

Here are a few things to consider when planning your next virtual campus event. Check out our comprehensive guide to hosting campus events with Zoom for even more tips and guidance!

One of the most helpful features of Zoom Events is the ability to host multiple sessions, at the same time, but still have one primary event link. Using Zoom Events, New Haven Public Schools was able to provide a more streamlined experience for its virtual School Choice Expo over the previous year, going from 30 different webinar links to one main event link.

What types of events might have multiple sessions? Think orientations, where you can plan a session with university leaders and deans, one with residential advisors to talk about dorm life, and another where students can learn about clubs and sports. Alumni events, fundraisers, open houses, research symposia, film festivals, job fairs, and college fairs may also warrant multiple sessions under a single event umbrella. For job or college fairs, you can set up each company or school with its own session to act as a virtual “booth.”

The Zoom Events lobby is a persistent space where attendees can chat, view the event agenda, and add sessions to their schedule. As the event administrator, you can open the lobby in advance so attendees can explore the info you’ve provided about upcoming sessions, create their itinerary, chat with each other, and learn about any sponsors the event might have. 

You can even livestream sessions to the lobby so people just joining the event can preview each session before choosing one to join. This is particularly helpful if event-goers have several options that pique their interest or want to avoid hopping into a session in the middle of a presentation.

Once your event is over, your next steps should include building connections with attendees and evaluating the success of your efforts. Zoom Events has features that help you do both.

Reach out to those who registered for the event to offer access to session recordings and follow-up information. Tailor your message to the audience — if you just completed an event for prospective students, share some resources and blog articles about campus life and invite them to join future events. 

See how many people attended and how those numbers compare with previous event attendance. Review your post-event survey results (you can set up a survey prior to the event in Zoom Events) to see where attendees thought your event shined and what it fell short on, so you can improve upon the experience in the future.

New Haven Public Schools held a virtual School Choice Expo featuring 30 different school sessions for more than 800 parents and students. Read our customer story to see how this real-life educational institution used Zoom Events, then dive into our Complete Guide for Hybrid and Virtual Campus Events, which offers an in-depth look at planning your next virtual or hybrid experience for your campus community.