I should be sitting in a field, sipping a lukewarm cider, waiting for Aerosmith to come on stage and blow me away. Instead, the event moved online, and the same question still hits every organizer: how do you turn a live conference into a virtual conference without losing the structure that makes the event work?
Virtual conferences are no longer a stop-gap. They are part of how teams host launches, customer events, webinars, training sessions, partner summits, and hybrid programs. This guide puts four Process Street process templates at the center and shows how to plan, host, run, and troubleshoot a virtual conference with repeatable workflows that cut costs and increase sales. When costs increase, sales targets get harder to hit, so the process behind the event matters as much as the platform.
- What is a virtual conference?
- Why run a virtual conference?
- What should I consider when running a virtual conference?
- How do I run a virtual conference (with Process Street)?
The four templates are still the spine of the article:
- Planning a Virtual Conference Checklist
- Hosting a Live Webinar Checklist
- Running a Virtual Conference Checklist
- Process for Troubleshooting Virtual Conference Issues Checklist
What is a virtual conference?
To explain what a virtual conference is, I first need to define what a traditional, physical conference is.
Traditional conferences
A conference brings people with common interests together to exchange ideas, solve problems, and coordinate around a shared topic.
Conferences are used to bring people and organizations with common interests together, to discuss ideas relating to a specific topic.
Conferences can be any size and held on every subject you can think of – from environmental sustainability and technology to mermaids and clowns.
Talks, debates, and panel discussions are often organized to allow experts to share thoughts, ideas, and information. Attendees can chat, mingle, and network with each other, and most conferences have at least one key speaker who is a respected leader in their field and the main reason people attend.
So that’s what a traditional, physical conference is. What about a virtual conference?
Virtual conferences
A virtual conference is an online version of a physical conference.
Instead of people meeting under one physical roof, they meet in a shared online virtual environment.
Thanks to technology and video streaming services, virtual conferences are similar to physical conferences in that they allow people to gather together, share information, and connect with one another.
Live speakers give talks and invite attendees to participate. Instant messaging tools allow for networking rooms to be opened up for guests to chat, and webinars, digital polls, and quizzes are used to bring the audience together.
But, as great as all that sounds, why would you choose to run a virtual conference over a traditional one?
Why run a virtual conference?
Setting COVID-19 aside for a second, why would you choose to run a virtual conference over a traditional conference?
Surely it’s easier to host a physical conference where people can naturally mingle and network? Surely it’s easier to keep attendees engaged with face to face interaction? Surely it’s easier to manage the conference team and speakers when everyone’s together, in one location?
Well, yes.
However, the benefits of running a virtual conference far outweigh some of the difficulties you may face when you run a conference online.
Let me show you what I mean.
Virtual conference benefit #1: Cut costs
Traditional conferences are incredibly expensive to run.
The average cost to hire a conference venue can range from $950 – $1,250 per hour. And that’s just the cost for the venue. What about accommodation and travel for the conference team and speakers? What about providing food and drink? What about renting tables, chairs, and decorations? What about the cost of printing thousands of conference packs and handouts?
Trust me. It’s expensive.
Hosting a virtual conference, on the other hand, is as cheap as chips.
As the conference is online, no physical venue is needed. Boom! Venue costs are gone.
As there’s no physical venue, no one needs to travel. No one needs food or drink. No one needs a chair to sit on. And no one needs a paper handout or a conference pack. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Accommodation & travel, food & drink, table & chairs, and paper & printing costs – all gone.
In fact, it will cost you, on average, significantly less to run a virtual conference than a physical one.
But it’s not all about lowering costs.
Virtual conference benefit #2: Reach a wider audience
A conference brings people with common interests together to exchange ideas, solve problems, and coordinate around a shared topic.
I think it’s clear that running a successful virtual conference, or any type of conference for that matter, requires plenty of planning.
What better tool to help you plan, than Process Street.
What should I consider when running a virtual conference?
Running a virtual conference is similar to running a physical one. You need to plan meticulously, hire speakers, promote the event, manage registrations, brief presenters, keep attendees engaged, and be ready for technical issues. The difference is that every weak handoff becomes visible online.
What technology to use when running a virtual conference
Your platform stack depends on the event format. For simple webinars, teams often combine Zoom, Vimeo, Slack, and a registration tool. For larger virtual events, products like Whova, RingCentral Events, EventMobi, ON24, Airmeet, and Zoom Events can support agendas, sponsor areas, networking, live streaming, and analytics.
Do not choose a platform only because it has the most features. Choose the tool that supports your agenda, speaker workflow, attendee experience, sponsor commitments, and support process. If your team is distributed, this remote work software guide can help you think through the wider tool stack around the event.
How to resolve issues on the day
Virtual conferences create different issues from physical events. Audio, video, connection, moderation, access, and speaker handoff problems can derail the experience quickly. Prepare a troubleshooting workflow before the event starts, assign owners, and make sure the team knows what to do when something breaks.
How to run a virtual conference and keep it engaging
Keep sessions short, brief speakers clearly, and build in moments where attendees can participate. Use chat, Q&A, polls, breakout rooms, networking slots, and follow-up resources deliberately. A virtual conference should feel designed for online attention, not like a physical agenda pasted into a video call.
How do I run a virtual conference (with Process Street)?
For the smooth running of a conference, meticulous planning must be carried out well in advance. Process Street gives that planning a place to run, so your team can move from preparation to live execution to troubleshooting without rebuilding the process each time.
Who is Process Street?
Process Street is a Compliance Operations Platform that turns recurring work into governed workflows. Teams use Docs to manage process documentation, Ops to run repeatable work, and Cora to monitor execution, catch risk, and suggest improvements.
For a virtual conference, that means your plan does not live in scattered documents, chat threads, and last-minute reminders. Your agenda, speaker prep, owner assignments, approvals, troubleshooting steps, and follow-up work can all run from one workflow.
Process Street connects directly to 5,000+ systems. Need a new integration? An AI agent builds it on the fly, so the conference workflow can coordinate with the tools your team already uses.
But how can Process Street help you plan and run your virtual conference?
Let’s take a look.
How to use Process Street to plan your virtual conference
Failing to plan is planning to fail, especially when it comes to virtual conferences.
Planning out every aspect of your conference, from start to finish, right down to the last minute, will help you feel in control and able to handle the many curveballs you’re likely to receive during the event.
So, why not use Process Street to create this plan?
You could create a virtual conference planning template, like the one below, and each time you run a conference, run a new workflow run from this workflow.
Planning a Virtual Conference Checklist
You can use this template time and time again, tweaking and improving the process each time you run it. You can add, remove, and complete tasks as the work moves forward. You can give your team access to it, set due dates, assign owners, and route approvals. You can even get stakeholder approval for certain parts of the conference, like budgets and content.
Click here to access the Planning a Virtual Conference Checklist!
To use this template, click the link above, sign into your account and add it to your dashboard.
If you’re not yet a user, sign up for a free trial.
As part of your planning, you’ll also need to decide what content you want to include at your conference. Remember, it needs to be engaging and interactive.
With this in mind, take a look at the below process for hosting a live webinar.
Hosting a Live Webinar Checklist
If your speakers are planning to host a webinar at your conference, assign this checklist to them so they can plan, prepare, and host an interactive, successful webinar that’s fantastically engaging for your attendees.
Click here to access the Hosting a Live Webinar Checklist!
So these are two processes that you can use, right this second, to help you plan your virtual conference.
Now let’s look at two processes that will help you run a mind-blowing virtual conference.
How to use Process Street to run your virtual conference
As we covered earlier, running a virtual conference can be a minefield.
On top of all the usual details you need to think about when running a physical conference, you also need to be ready for unforeseen technical issues. Plus, without the comfort of having a team within touching distance, a lot of what happens during the conference can make you feel a little nervous and out of control.
So, below are two templates that you can have, for free, to help you navigate the choppy waters of your conference and come out the other side smiling.
Running a Virtual Conference Checklist
Run this checklist on the day of your virtual conference to make sure your team knows what they’re doing, the speakers and hosts are ready to go, each session starts on time and goes without a hitch, your technical equipment works, and, most importantly your attendees have the best experience.
Click here to access the Running a Virtual Conference Checklist!
Process for Troubleshooting Virtual Conference Issues Checklist
Alongside the usual dramas and dilemmas that traditional conferences bring, virtual conferences also provide organizers with technical challenges such as issues with audio, video, connection, or network connections. These issues can be catastrophic to the success of a virtual event and can be difficult to resolve if you’re working remotely, without support from IT experts. Use this checklist to help you resolve the issues you face, during your conference, as quickly as possible.
Click here to access the Process for Troubleshooting Virtual Conference Issues Checklist!
As mentioned earlier, you might want to improve or change these templates to make them specific to your virtual conference.
This is easily done and, to help you out, below are some cracking features that you can use to make your virtual conference templates even more useful:
- Stop tasks
- Dynamic due dates
- Task permissions
- Conditional logic
- Approval tasks
- Embed widget
- Role assignments
If you want to find out more about hosting virtual conferences and events, take a look at these related articles.
Virtual conference related articles
- Remote Work Software: Tools for Distributed Teams
- Marketing Events: Our Toolkit on How to Measure Your Event Success
- Virtual Team: How to Excel at Remote Working
- How to Onboard a New Virtual Assistant
Or, if reading is not your thing, check out this video on remote team tools for collaboration and productivity.