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Going into the new year, hosting a sales kickoff (SKO) is a great opportunity to rally your sales and marketing organization around your latest company strategies, plans, and best practices. 

Thanks to modern technologies, it’s easier than ever for businesses to deliver meetings, webinars, and events via the internet. While the move toward virtual and hybrid events meetings was accelerated due to COVID-19 lockdowns and safety concerns, businesses have embraced the opportunity to reach larger and more distant audiences online.

But businesses need to balance these benefits with new risks and threats. This is especially true today, when virtual and hybrid events are reaching maturity and the initial novelty around the format has given way to clearer measures for performance. As organisations are responsible for safeguarding a huge amount of attendee and speaker data, cybersecurity is a crucial concern for online event managers. Depending on their objectives, hackers may attempt to steal your business data, attendee personal and payment data, or they may seek to spread malware to attendee devices.

Robust cybersecurity is key to minimising these risks and protecting your reputation, along with your audience’s data. For organisations, another concern is complying with strict data privacy regulations like GDPR in the EU or American state-specific laws like the CCPA in California. Failure to meet GDPR compliance, for instance, can cost €20 million or up to 4% of annual global turnover.

While Interprefy isn’t a data security company, we are ISO 27001 certified and our Information Security Management Systems is aligned with standards in the area of data security and recommended best practices. Drawing from our expertise and experience with online and hybrid events, we’ve put together a checklist for organisations looking to improve their event cybersecurity. Let’s dive in.

Many consider Cleopatra to be the first recorded event planner in history. She knew the value of bringing people together for celebrations, announcements, and other occasions. Famously, she turned meeting Roman general Mark Antony into a fabulous event. Cleopatra entered the meeting floating down the Nile on the ancient equivalent of a luxury yacht — while dressed as the goddess Venus. Talk about making an entrance.

Cleopatra’s goal for meeting Mark Antony was clear: she wanted to form a close connection with him. The result of her event? Her dynasty got to live on for another day. From seasonal festivals to the modern New Year’s party, events have retained the same underlying goal: to build connections and bring people together for a shared experience.

While the goal of events hasn’t changed, the significant investment required to create modern business events means that there is more at stake. This is especially the case today, with a vast array of technological tools facilitating many parts of event management.

Hybrid and virtual events take this that much farther, as many (if not all) attendees experience the event through their devices. Along with being accessed via devices, online events can be joined from nearly anywhere on the globe. This presents businesses with the opportunity to reach audiences at scale. But is reaching the largest possible audience a sign of a successful event? Some businesses certainly benefit from hosting smaller events that lead to deeper connections and more meaningful networking experiences.

With so many changing factors and business models at play, let’s consider how event “success” has evolved to meet the contemporary business environment.