Why there’s no need to be stressed about hosting on Toucan

We understand that using a new video platform can take some adjusting. That’s why we take our onboarding process so seriously. Regardless, it can still take a little bit of work - especially the first time. To help you, we’ve brainstormed and put together 7 practical and easy tips on how to host your first Toucan event fearlessly.

Try it out

We can’t stress this enough: the best way to learn how to use Toucan is simply to try it out. Organizing an event without ever having been to an event yourself means that you won’t have the ability to support others. Our video conferencing software is intentionally different from others on the market.

We always tell people to check how Toucan feels in real-time. That's the only way for you to know what to expect from the product. If you know what to expect, the chances of you hosting a better virtual event are infinitely higher.

Structure your event

Toucan is a great platform, but just like any other tool, it can’t do all the work for you. Making a virtual event great takes work on the part of the organizer(s) and a solid reason for everyone being there. We recommend that you have some kind of structure, even if that “structure” entails unstructured mingling time. It’s important to leave space for breaks, virtual icebreakers, online networking, and so on.

Demo!

We always advise every host to send relevant links from the Toucan website, such as our demo, our help center and our blog. It might help with onboarding your attendees.

It is always the case, however, that no matter how little time it takes for people to scan through resources before doing something new, there will be some people who don’t do it. So we recommend that hosts leave a minute or two for people to learn how Toucan works in real-time at your event. You could invite people to come to your event or Toucan Space early, or you can push your start time back slightly to leave room for people to experiment.

Greet and guide people

Oftentimes, we tend to forget that in the virtual social world we should also be polite and greet people. Taking the time to say hi to everyone and to check in with people to make sure that they feel welcomed can have a huge impact on the success of your virtual event.

If you are hosting an online event with a big audience it might get harder to say hello to everyone. You can designate a few co-hosts from within your organization, whose role it is to send waves and private messages to people when they enter the space. Alternatively, you can always bring on a Toucan Producer - a member of our team - to be there during the event and help out.

Speaking of giving people guidance during the event, we also believe that it is nice to update the global chat consistently with what is going on, what’s happening next, or instructions for an activity: “for the next 15 minutes we will discuss this”, “next we will have a question round, feel free to come to the stage”.

Keep technology in mind

Make sure that your community knows that Toucan works best on a tablet or computer. It works on mobile devices, but the smaller screen means that you can see less of what’s going on around you. This may seem like a small detail, but it makes a big difference when it comes to your event’s success.

Use the chat

By “chat,” we mean all 3 ways of sending a text message: to someone one-on-one, to everyone in the group you’re currently in, and to everybody at the event via the global chat. The chats offer a great way to connect and interact with people in a low-pressure way, and they can help you build relationships and network more effectively.