Kirkwood Hospice has been providing care for local people with life-limiting illnesses and support for their families and loved ones since 1987. The hospice provides these services free of charge and relies on the generosity of the community who continue to support the hospice through donations and fundraising events.
Whilst many events serve as simply an occasion to celebrate or to provide entertainment, for the third sector and many charitable organisations, events are vital fundraising opportunities. Faced with the cancellation of these key events, many organisations are looking to virtual alternatives to reimagine their events and secure much-needed income to allow their services to continue.
The Midnight Memory Walk is a popular annual fundraising event for Kirkwood Hospice, attracting around 1,400 walkers each year and raising essential funds for the hospice. With the event postponed, the team were keen to still mark the occasion on what would have been their 14th annual walk, and enlisted our help with a virtual event, the ‘Not Quite Midnight Memory Walk.’
We worked with the hospice to put together a two-hour live broadcast, with a host of performances and interactive elements, including a fitness dance warm-up from Energie Fitness Dance, live music from Jon Coombs and Dezzie Dee and vintage soul singer, Georgia Harrup and a dance performance from Elaine Howarth’s Centre Stage Dance School. We also had one of the UK’s top magicians, Scott Perry Magic on hand to deliver some virtual magic!
We safely broadcast the event from our spacious unit in Leeds, creating a branded set with staging, lighting and visuals for a professional and exciting finish. We used a combination of pre-recorded videos and live streams and Glenn Lamont did a fantastic job hosting the evening and facilitating all the different segments of the show. This ‘hybrid’ approach where the host is in the studio with the technical crew, enabled the team to create a seamless production and manage any unexpected technical issues or last-minute changes.
The Kirkwood Hospice team did a great job on social media, creating an event page and hashtag for the event so that people could join in live and engage with each other. Guests were encouraged to share their photos with ‘Best Dressed’ and ‘Best Refreshment’ competitions and prizes up for grabs throughout the evening.
The event was streamed via YouTube making it simple for everyone to access, and the video is still available to view post-event for those who couldn’t join live. To date, the broadcast has had over 1,000 views.
Holding a virtual event is a great way to keep your audience, customers and supporters engaged with your business or cause in the absence of in-person events. As people are getting even more familiar and comfortable with using technology to stay connected, we’re seeing higher levels of engagement with online experiences.
If you’d like some more information on how to connect with your audience virtually, or how to deliver your event online, get in touch with our team today.
Kirkwood Hospice are working hard to reschedule their annual Midnight Memory Walk for later in the year – for more information, visit their website here.
