# Virtual Events
Virtual KC7 events open cybersecurity education to participants anywhere. This guide covers platform selection, technical setup, facilitation, and troubleshooting for online events that keep people engaged.
{% hint style="success" %}
**Virtual events excel at**: reaching distributed audiences, flexible participation, easy recording for later review, and removing geographic and travel barriers.
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***
## 🎥 Platform Selection
{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Zoom" %}
**Best for**: most KC7 events.
Industry standard with reliable screen sharing, strong breakout rooms, built-in recording, chat, polls, and waiting room. Pre-create breakout rooms, enable co-hosts, and use spotlight for presentations. Decide ahead of time whether participants can share their screens.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Microsoft Teams" %}
**Best for**: corporate and enterprise events where Teams is already standard.
Reliable for business settings, integrated with Microsoft 365, with built-in recording and persistent meeting chat. Test external participant access before the event, since guest access varies by tenant. Use Teams channels for post-event discussion.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Discord" %}
**Best for**: community events and gaming-focused audiences.
Free for large groups and gives you a persistent server for ongoing discussion. Set up a main voice channel, separate voice channels per team, and text channels for links and help. Use stage channels for presentations, and assign roles so moderators have the right permissions.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Google Meet" %}
**Best for**: schools and orgs already on Google Workspace.
Simple interface and easy calendar integration, with closed captions for accessibility. Breakout room and engagement features are limited, so keep groups smaller. Use Google Chat alongside the meeting for team coordination and Google Drive for shared resources.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}
***
## 🎬 Pre-Event Technical Setup
### One week before
Test the platform end-to-end. Confirm participant capacity, screen sharing quality, breakout room configuration, recording, and co-host permissions. Run through the KC7 intro page once on the platform to verify videos play with audio and the Go Link is ready to paste. Confirm your upload speed is at least 10 Mbps. Send calendar invites with the meeting link and joining instructions, and set up a backup communication channel.
### Day before
Do a full rehearsal on your actual device. Camera, microphone, lighting, with unnecessary apps closed and devices charged. Send a reminder email with the meeting link, technical requirements, and what participants should prepare (device, browser). Offer an early login window for tech checks.
### 30–60 minutes before
* [ ] Join the meeting early and test camera, mic, internet
* [ ] Share screen to verify quality
* [ ] Load the KC7 intro page and have the Go Link ready to paste in chat
* [ ] Open the host dashboard on a second screen or device
* [ ] Enable the waiting room or set entry rules
* [ ] Co-hosts join, get co-host permissions, and confirm their roles (chat monitor, tech support, breakout room manager)
***
## 📺 Screen Sharing
Share a specific tab or window rather than your full screen, close email and messaging apps to avoid notifications, and zoom in to make text readable. Enable "Share Computer Sound" before playing videos and test audio sharing first.
**During intro (15–20 min)**: share the KC7 intro page, play the two instructional videos with audio, and show the Go Link clearly.
**During investigation**: stop sharing so participants focus on their own screens. Re-share occasionally for group announcements or to display the scoreboard.
**During wrap-up**: share the final scoreboard and any closing slides or next-steps resources.
***
## 👥 Managing Virtual Participants
### Engagement
Greet participants by name as they join and use a warmer, more energetic tone than you would in person to compensate for distance. Encourage cameras on if people are comfortable. During the event, call on participants by name, use reactions or polls for quick pulse checks, and give progress updates more often than you would in person.
### The chat window
Pin the Go Link in chat the moment the event opens, then use chat throughout for resources, hints, and questions. Have a co-host monitor chat while you present so questions get answered quickly. Set expectations early about whether questions go in public chat or as private messages, and capture good ones for group discussion. Save the chat transcript at the end.
### Breakout rooms
Use breakout rooms for team-based events, collaborative problems, or focused small-group help. Aim for 2–4 people per room, set a timer, and broadcast time warnings. Circulate between rooms to listen, encourage, and check for technical issues before interrupting.
***
## 🎯 Maintaining Energy
Virtual energy is harder to read because there's no physical presence and "Zoom fatigue" is real. Compensate with higher vocal energy, visual variety (switch between camera, screen, and shared content), more frequent check-ins, and scheduled breaks for longer events.
A rough cadence:
* **0–15 min**: hook with energy and clear value
* **15–45 min**: first engagement check, celebrate early progress
* **45–60 min**: break or energy boost
* **60+ min**: regular check-ins and encouragement
Read the room by monitoring video feeds, watching chat activity, noticing who's gone silent, and checking the scoreboard for stuck participants. Quick polls work well when you can't gauge energy by sight.
***
## 🎪 Running the Virtual Event
### Opening (15–20 min)
Greet people in the waiting room as they arrive and play background music or chat casually until the official start. Then welcome everyone, run a quick tech check ("thumbs up if you can hear me"), give a short overview, play the two KC7 instructional videos with audio, and add your own context. Cover the schedule, how to ask questions, breaks if any, and the reminder that finishing isn't the goal.
### During investigation (60–90 min)
Stay visible and available. Monitor chat constantly, check the scoreboard periodically, and circulate through breakout rooms if you're using them. Aim for a group check-in every 20 minutes and a quick poll or question around the 30–45 minute mark.
For remote troubleshooting, ask participants to describe what they see, request screenshots in chat, and send a co-host into a breakout room for one-on-one help. Direct people to written troubleshooting resources for common issues.
### Closing (15–20 min)
Give a 5-minute warning, ask everyone back to the main room, and thank participants. Share screen with the final scoreboard, recognize top performers, highlight interesting approaches, and ask what surprised people (chat works well for this). End with next steps. How to keep playing, future events, and how to stay connected (Discord, mailing list).
***
## 🛠️ Virtual Troubleshooting
### Common issues
**"I can't hear you"**: check mute, test speakers, try headphones, rejoin the meeting, or check platform audio settings.
**"You're breaking up"**: ask if others hear you. If yes, the issue is on their end; have them turn off video or close other apps. If no, check your connection and turn off your video temporarily.
**"I can't see the screen"**: verify you're actually sharing, ask them to click the screen share window or maximize it, and check they aren't in speaker view hiding the share.
**"I got kicked out"**: re-post the meeting link in chat. If your own connection drops, a co-host can keep things running while you rejoin. Phone dial-in is a useful backup.
### Platform-specific
**Zoom**: if a participant can't join, check the waiting room and meeting link. Breakout rooms must be enabled in account settings beforehand. Screen sharing permissions can block participants from sharing.
**Teams**: external participants often need guest access enabled. If video quality is poor, drop the video quality setting. Make sure the chat panel is open to see messages.
**Discord**: voice channel issues are usually input/output device settings. If screen share is laggy, lower the resolution or frame rate. Permissions issues trace back to role configuration.
***
## 📱 Device Setup
**Optimal host setup**: main computer for the meeting and screen sharing, second monitor for the host dashboard and scoreboard, phone or tablet for chat monitoring and as a backup connection.
**Minimal host setup**: one computer with browser tabs and windows arranged so you can alt-tab between the meeting, KC7 intro page, and host dashboard.
**For participants**: a computer for the KC7 game plus a second device (tablet or phone) for the meeting video reduces screen switching. On a single device, minimize the meeting window during investigation, turn off video to save bandwidth, and use chat instead of video.
***
## 🎥 Recording
Recording is useful for absent registrants, post-event review, promotional clips, and your own facilitation feedback. Announce that you're recording, explain how it'll be used, and get consent before you start. Record the introduction, key announcements, and wrap-up. You can pause during pure investigation time. Afterward, save to secure storage, edit out technical difficulties if needed, and add captions for accessibility before sharing.
{% hint style="warning" %}
**Privacy first**: always inform participants before recording and get any consent required by your jurisdiction.
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***
## 🎨 Advanced Techniques
### Engagement boosters
Polls and quick cybersecurity trivia work well during breaks or transitions. KC7-branded virtual backgrounds create visual cohesion and double as an icebreaker. For breakout rooms, try random mixing for networking, skill-based groupings for peer learning, or timed challenges between rooms.
### Co-host coordination
Divide responsibilities clearly. Main host handles presentation and facilitation. Co-host 1 monitors chat and answers questions. Co-host 2 covers technical support and breakout rooms. With a third co-host, add a dedicated person to watch analytics and support stuck participants.
Use private chat or a side channel (text, Slack) for coordination during the event, agree on signals for when to step in, and debrief together afterward.
***
## 🌍 Hybrid Considerations
If you must run a hybrid event, position the camera to capture in-person participants, use a microphone that picks up room discussion, and make sure virtual participants are visible to the in-person group. Call on virtual participants by name and monitor virtual chat actively so they don't feel secondary. Watch for audio feedback loops between in-person mics and speakers.
{% hint style="info" %}
**Hybrid is hard**: unless necessary, run separate in-person and virtual events for a better experience on both sides.
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***
## 📋 Day-of Checklist
**30 minutes before:**
* [ ] Join meeting, test all tech
* [ ] Load KC7 intro page
* [ ] Have Go Link ready to paste
* [ ] Co-hosts join and test
* [ ] Open chat window
* [ ] Start recording setup
**At event start:**
* [ ] Welcome participants warmly
* [ ] Quick tech check with group
* [ ] Play KC7 videos with screen share
* [ ] Post Go Link in chat
* [ ] Set expectations and schedule
**During event:**
* [ ] Monitor chat continuously
* [ ] Circulate in breakout rooms
* [ ] Check scoreboard periodically
* [ ] Provide regular encouragement
* [ ] Troubleshoot tech issues
**At closing:**
* [ ] 5-minute warning
* [ ] Display final scoreboard
* [ ] Celebrate achievements
* [ ] Share next steps
* [ ] Save chat transcript
* [ ] Stop recording
***
## Why Virtual Works
KC7's self-guided format translates well online. Participants are absorbed in their own screens anyway, investigating data and answering questions, so the lecture-versus-engagement problem doesn't really apply. The harder part is human connection and energy across distance, which is what most of this guide is about.
Virtual events also have real advantages over in-person. Participants join from anywhere with no commute, you can host 50 people as easily as 15, chat creates a searchable record of questions and resources, and there's no venue or catering cost. Lean into those rather than trying to recreate an in-person event online.
***
## 🔗 Related Resources
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