I am writing to ask if people in the community can post any noteworthy experiences they have had with hybrid online/in-person workshops. Does anyone have experience with these, as either organizer or participant? The hybrid aspect would of course be before the pandemic, but my institution is thinking towards a future scenario where in-person workshops can return, and how to capture some of the gains made in online workshops in the past year, with a twin goal of widening participation and reducing unnecessary travel. Of course if you have insights to share which have been gleaned from fully online workshops in the past year, please do share them as well.
I suppose the actual filming and streaming of the lectures is fairly self-explanatory, given enough resources. Has anyone had good experience moderating Q&A in a hybrid situation? How can one include remote participants on a similar footing to local participants? Thinking also about bringing people together to actually meet and discuss rather than just listen to talks, has anyone ever had an experience with discussing mathematics that was superior to simply discussing on Zoom? I have heard about a PI/Bonn conference where there were some screens and cameras set up for spontaneous conversations, but I am not sure how well it worked. That raises the possibility of clustered conferences, hosted in multiple locations in conjunction. Besides the PI/Bonn workshop have there been others, and did anyone attend one they thought was particularly successful?
If one imagined a budget to buy kit at the conference host -- but presumably requiring remote participants to interact on their own kit -- is there anything non-obvious one can do to make this more of a success? Any ideas/suggestions to ensure quality delivery of remote lectures?