The best way to become a RingCentral Events expert is to deeply understand the variety of available features and the attendee experience. This guide gives an overview of the event formats, event areas, and registration options, and explains how attendees can interact with each other and get around the event.
Introduction to event formats
With the evolution of RingCentral Events, event formats have expanded beyond virtual events. Now, Organizers can choose from various formats with unique features and capabilities, catering to diverse event requirements. The available formats include:
Webinar event
A single-track event format that can last up to 8 hours, ideal for single-day marketing demos, internal events and interactive workshops. Includes limited features and settings, ensuring quick and easy setup.
Virtual event
A multi-track multi-day event format, suited for online conferences, and big internal or external events. Offers multiple virtual spaces and advanced features and settings.
Hybrid event
A multi-track multi-day event format, designed for events and conferences occurring onsite and broadcasted online, hybrid events with scheduled onsite and virtual components. Offers multiple virtual spaces and advanced features and settings, including onsite features.
Onsite event
A multi-track multi-day event format, tailored for events and conferences with a physical location and no virtual broadcast. Includes onsite features.
Tip: Learn more about all four event formats here: Choosing the right event format: Webinar, Virtual, Hybrid and Onsite
Introduction to event areas
In RingCentral Events, various virtual areas offer different engagement opportunities for your attendees. You have the flexibility to enable and disable them as well as to set the landing area based on your event's specific needs.
Note: In a Webinar event, only one virtual space is available: either a Stage or a Session. Expo, Networking and App areas are not supported. Learn more about in our guide Webinar event: Choosing and setting up webinar style.
Reception
The Reception area is the welcome page or “lobby” of your event. Here you can quickly find out what’s happening at the event currently: the organizer's welcome message, sponsors, the schedule, and speakers. The Reception area is best used for announcements, important links, sponsor messages, and event updates.
Check our guide on Setting up Reception page for details on how to set it up.
Stage
It’s a one-to-many interaction area that supports up to 100,000 concurrent viewers. The Stage is great for your keynotes, presentations, panels, performances, and fireside chats.
The video content types supported on the Stage:
- Built-in live video on the Backstage powered by StreamYard. The most versatile interaction on the Stage that fits right in and requires the least of preparation. Up to 10 people can share video on screen at the same time. Check our guide on Using Backstage powered by StreamYard for an in-depth walkthrough.
- Pre-recorded content from YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia. The webinar-style pre-recordings are great for promo or intro videos.
- Live-streaming via RTMP. Tools like OBS and WireCast (and many more) can be used with RingCentral Events, allowing you to seamlessly blend physical and virtual events by broadcasting live feeds to the RingCentral Stage for online viewers.
Check our Stage tutorial for more details on the Stage segment of the event. For Webinar events, refer to the guide Webinar event: Choosing and setting up webinar style.
Sessions
The Sessions segment of RingCentral Events delivers the best experience for group discussions, multi-track conferences, training workshops, hackathons, breakout rooms, webinars, and teams. In Sessions, you will see virtual roundtables for speakers and attendees to interact. This is often where attendees ask questions to the speakers on camera.
Imagine you have tens of Sessions during your multi-day event. RingCentral Events made sure to declutter the Sessions segment and in case the Sessions are tied to the Schedule, they will automatically appear five minutes before the time on Schedule and automatically hide once their time is up (this is customizable).
Check our Session tutorial for more details on the Sessions segment of the event. For Webinar events, refer to the guide Webinar event: Choosing and setting up webinar style.
Networking
The Networking area is a dedicated area to promote 1:1 connections between attendees. Here, you can find the Speed Networking feature, recommended connections as well as a search function to find other people at the event.
Speed Networking is similar to one-on-one meetings on a FaceTime call. This segment is designed to recreate the “coffee-in-the-lobby” conversations or watercooler chats that are important at an in-person event. When an attendee participates in Speed Networking, they are matched either with a random attendee and meet for a set time preset by the Organizer.
Attendees can click the Connect button during a call to exchange contact information and after the event the newly made contacts will appear at the Connections page of their attendee dashboard.
Speed Networking stays randomized, but can be set to a specific ticket type to segment the matchmaking between groups of ticket holders: whether it’s everyone meets everyone in a general networking experience, or targeted, such as at recruiting and job fairs, interviews, teachers and students, coaching, dating, pitching, and so on.
Check our Networking tutorial for more details on the Networking segment of the event.
Expo
The Expo area is the virtual exhibitor hall with exhibitor booths in your event. It’s great for featuring a wide array of brands, products or services, just like a trade fair, job fair, or sponsor showcase.
Every booth can have either a pre-recorded video in it such as a YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia clip, live stream via YouTube or a live video session with an exhibitor “manning” and moderating the booth. All embedded videos added to the Expo are played on demand, i.e. the attendee accessing the booth will have the ability to play/pause/skip the video.
Plus, every booth also has a customizable CTA button that can collect emails when set to Register interest or be a custom text linked to any valid external hyperlink.
Check our Expo tutorial for more details on the Expo segment of the event.
Replay
The Replay area serves as a dedicated space for attendees to access and catch up on presentations and discussions they might have missed during the live event.
Event Organizers have the capability to manually publish existing Session and Stage recordings into the Replay area. Additionally, the Replay area can be configured to remain accessible for attendees up to 12 months following the conclusion of the event.
For detailed information on setting up event recordings in the Replay area for attendee access during the event, refer to our Replay tutorial.
App area
The App Area enables integrating various entertaining and interactive apps directly into your event environment. By adding this feature, you can offer your attendees a diverse range of engaging activities without diverting them away from the RingCentral Events platform or your event. Available apps include Captello, Testimonial, Kumospace, Buzz Radar, Capsule, WeBooth, Mootup, and Picture Mosaics.
For detailed instructions on setting up the App Area, refer to our guide: Setting up App event area.
Custom area
Additionally, you have the option to include one custom area, allowing you to personalize the attendee experience further. With a custom name and uploaded icon, this area can serve as a direct link to an external webpage, such as your company website or a specific landing page related to your event.
For step-by-step instructions on configuring the Custom Event Area, refer to our guide: Setting up Custom event area.
Introduction to registration
RingCentral Events offers a comprehensive built-in registration system equipped with various features to tailor the registration process to your audience's needs. With options to create both free and paid tickets, add custom registration questions, control ticket availability, facilitate bulk registrations, and manage existing registrations, you have ample flexibility to streamline attendee registration.
Landing page
Attendees can access the event landing page to purchase tickets and secure their spot at your event. There are two primary options to set up your landing page:
- Classic layout: This default option allows for some custom color branding and automatically displays event details along with Schedule, Speakers, Sponsors and Expo booths you've configured in the event settings.
- Advanced layout: Utilizing a drag-and-drop page builder, it offers extensive customization options including layout, branding, and custom fonts. With four main themes to choose from, organizers have the flexibility to create a visually appealing landing page tailored to their event's aesthetic.
It's also possible to embed the registration widget into your website.
Magic Link invites
For targeted invitations, you can upload a pre-selected list of invitees and send them Magic Link invites. When clicked and accepted, these magic links automatically sign up the attendee for the specified event and create an account for them, streamlining the registration process. Learn more about this option here: Creating and using Magic Links
Uploading registrants in bulk
If you already have a list of attendees or have collected registrations on a third-party platform, you can seamlessly import your list in bulk with a simple click. Find out more about the bulk upload functionality here: Bulk uploading registrants
Integrations
RingCentral Events integrates with several CRM and Marketing systems, like Hubspot or Marketo, enabling you to automate registration imports and exports to and from their events. Learn more about available integrations here: Which Apps are available on RingCentral Events?
Entering the event
Attendees can access the event in two primary ways: either through the magic link provided in event emails or by signing in to their user account via the Profile Dashboard. Upon entering the event, registered users will be directed to the designated landing area, typically the Reception page.
If the event has not yet started, attendees will see the waiting room with the basic event information, the countdown to the start time, and access to the Event-wise chat as well as seeing any existing polls, registered people, and Q&As in the right side activity panel. All other event areas will be greyed out and inaccessible.
The Organizer can also enable the Early Access to give attendees access to the Reception and Networking areas before the event starts.
Getting around
Similar to a physical event, the online event experience is self-directed but with way-finding tools and signs to help people easily get around. Attendees ultimately choose where they want to go.
By default, all enabled event areas on RingCentral are open during the entire event. However, Organizers can direct Attendees to the most relevant segment via signposting options:
- Event Schedule: A Schedule shows the attendees what’s happening, where they should be, when, and who’s speaking.
- My Agenda: Attendees can add scheduled items to their own personal agenda which will be shown in a dedicated tab in the activity panel.
- Live and Now tags: When the Stage is live or Sessions, Networking and Expo are happening now according to the Schedule, the red LIVE and NOW tags will appear on the left side navigation panel, conquering the attention span of the event attendees.
- What’s happening now banners: When attendees first land in the Reception area, there’s a large clickable button that hints at What’s happening now for all attendees and will get to the specific event segment in one click.
- Announcements: Organizers can send announcements to all attendees during an event by using the announcement feature within the event. This will be shown on the attendees' screens as a notification.
- Highlighted chat messages sent by Organizers: Chat messages sent by the Organizer are always highlighted to get easily identified by the Attendees.
- Pinned chat messages: Any extra information or useful links to related content can be pinned by Organizers to always be visible to Attendees on top of any Stage, Session or Expo chat.
- Shortened URLs: This is a powerful tool for giving attendees a one-click entrance into any part of an event on RingCentral. If you copy the URL of any area in RingCentral (i.e., a particular Session, an Expo Booth, the Stage, etc.) and paste it into any chat, RingCentral automatically shortens the URL to a clickable hashtag.
Interacting with others
RingCentral Events provides a multitude of engagement features, enabling attendees to interact with each other while participating in broadcasts and sessions curated by the Event Organizer.
Activity panel
The activity panel, situated on the right side of the online event venue, functions as an interactive space for audience engagement, comprising four tabs:
- Chat: Allows attendees to tag each other, reply in a thread, react with emojis, send GIFs, and more. Organizers can manage chat by pinning and deleting messages.
- Polls: Enables creation and display of multiple real-time polls for attendee feedback, with results available in event analytics. Organizers, Moderators and Speakers can create, schedule and manage polls.
- People: Displays the list of event registrants so that users attending can become more familiar with the audience.
- Q&A: Allows attendees to ask questions, both anonymously and by displaying their names. Organizers and Speakers can announce the Q&A, while all event stakeholders will be able to answer questions in writing and mark them as answers.
Tip: Organizers can enable and disable the activity panel tabs in the event setting. To learn more refer to these guides:
Direct messages
Anyone can send messages to an individual at an event via DMs. To send a DM, attendees can find a person they wish to chat with in the chat, People tab or Networking area, click their profile photo, and opt to send a direct message.
Instant and scheduled video calls
While exploring the attendee profile or engaging in private chat, attendees can initiate an instant video call or schedule a private meeting for a later time is another option. It's also possible to schedule a group call, inviting up to 19 participants.
Tip: Organizers can manage attendee permissions in the event settings. Refer to this guide to learn more: Setting up Attendee controls and visibility for an event
Note: Unlike in multi-track events, direct messages and 1:1 meetings are not supported in the Session event format.
Streamlining attendee experience
To ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience for attendees at your event, consider implementing the following strategies:
- Preparation: Before the event, provide attendees with personalized demos or instructional materials to familiarize them with the platform. This is particularly crucial for speakers who should conduct a rehearsal and perform a pre-event check to ensure optimal settings for their presentation.
- Verbal instruction on Stage: During the event's welcome message, offer guidance to attendees on navigating the RingCentral platform and maximizing their event experience.
- Informative Reception page: Create a comprehensive Reception page to greet attendees upon their arrival at the event. Include pertinent information and instructions to help attendees navigate the event seamlessly.
- Engage in the Event chat: Utilize the Event chat to direct the flow of the event and provide real-time updates and announcements. Use Organizer messages to highlight key activities and engage attendees throughout the event.
- Team collaboration: Work collaboratively with a team of Organizers to efficiently moderate the event and provide assistance to attendees across different areas of the event venue. Having multiple Organizers allows for better coverage and support for attendees' needs.
You now have a solid understanding of the key features and attendee experience within RingCentral Events. Armed with this knowledge, you're well-equipped to enhance the quality and engagement of your future events. Put your newfound expertise into practice and watch your events thrive!