How North Dakota HHS Hit Record Attendance With Its Hybrid Conference on vFairs

Highlights

Every year, North Dakota Health & Human Services gathers colleagues from across the state for its annual Behavioral Health & Children and Family Services Conference. The goal stays steady: strong keynotes, hands-on learning, and conversations that shape the future of behavioral health and child welfare work in North Dakota.

The conference runs as a hybrid event, with attendees onsite and hundreds more joining online. ND HHS has run it on vFairs for four years, leaning on the platform for registration, payment, and the experience across both audiences.

The pattern has held. Attendance keeps climbing, and the conference keeps setting records year after year.

The Challenges

Logistics Eating Into Planning Time

Running a multi-track conference means handling registration, payment, speaker coordination, and the attendee experience all at once. The ND HHS team wanted to spend less time solving logistical problems and more time on speaker selection and the overall experience for every stakeholder.

The Risk of Two Disconnected Events

The conference brings people together in the room and online at the same time. Both groups need to follow the same sessions, connect with sponsors, and take part, so the in-person and online sides have to feel like one coherent event rather than two.

Rising Expectations Every Year

After several years of record attendance, expectations are set. Returning attendees count on the same quality of experience each year, onsite and online, which keeps the bar high for every event the team plans.

The Solution

Onsite Registration & Payment

vFairs handled onsite registration and payment for attendees and sponsors. With those pieces taken care of, the planning team could put their time where it counts: finding innovative speakers and shaping a positive experience for everyone involved.

A Unified Hybrid Platform

The vFairs platform brought the in-person and online sides of the conference together. With 1,017 attendees logging in, the online audience could follow sessions, connect with sponsors, and take part alongside the in-person participants. With both audiences on the same platform, the conference ran as one event instead of two parallel ones.

A Clean, Consistent Experience

The event website and online platform were organized, customized, and easy to navigate. That consistency is what lets the team meet the expectations of a returning audience and deliver the standard the conference has become known for, year after year.

Event Gallery

Why vFairs?

North Dakota HHS has run its conference on vFairs for four years, and the platform has grown alongside the event. Each year has brought new advancements, and the team’s experience has stayed positive throughout.

For a conference that runs annually and depends on returning attendees, that reliability matters. The team knows what to expect, attendees know what to expect, and the platform keeps delivering it.

In the Spotlight: Onsite Registration & Payment

When Jill describes what makes vFairs work, she starts with onsite registration and payment. Her team runs it for both attendees and sponsors, without the constant problem-solving. That frees up time for more strategic work, like speaker selection and attendee experience planning.

For ND HHS, that shift is the whole point. The platform handles the operational side, printing 484 badges onsite as attendees checked in. So the team can focus on the parts of the conference only they can do.

Results

Four years in, the conference keeps doing what it set out to do.

With 1,422 registrations, attendance continues to break records year after year. The streaming capabilities that brought sessions to the online audience specifically drew positive feedback, with several talks passing 1,000 views.

That momentum is already carrying into next year. North Dakota HHS is setting up its next event with vFairs, including event pages, attendee and exhibitor registration forms, sponsor pages, and discount codes.

خادم vFairs MCP

التسويق والاستحواذ

تطبيقات الفعاليات

التخطيط والبناء

رؤى وأساسيات

إدارة

يتفاعل

في الموقع

افتراضي

الفعاليات الحضورية

الفعاليات الهجينة : (الحضورية و الافتراضية)

الفعاليات الافتراضية

أنماط الفعاليات الحضورية

أشكال الفعاليات المختلطة

أنماط الفعاليات الافتراضية

الموارد

وسائل الإعلام

الموارد المميزة