Overview
TEDWomen Presents brought together an extraordinary lineup of female changemakers for a five-day virtual festival of ideas and inspiration. Designed as “a week of ideas and inspiration,” the fully online experience featured daily live talks from iconic speakers, intimate interviews, curated film screenings, and an expansive on-demand library.
Notable voices included former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, actress and activist, Jane Fonda, and many more, who came together to explore themes of climate justice, human rights, and leadership. Together, they delivered an uplifting and thought-provoking experience that resonated deeply with a global audience seeking hope, action, and community.
The challenge
TED sought to reimagine its signature in-person experience for a global online audience without losing the energy, emotion, and sense of connection that define the TED brand. The team needed a virtual platform capable of hosting multiple live sessions and formats, enabling real-time engagement between speakers and attendees, and sustaining the event’s impact long after the live program ended.
Equally important was the need to provide measurable value to sponsors through meaningful brand visibility and digital touchpoints that aligned with TED’s “ideas worth spreading” mission. The challenge was not only to produce a technically seamless broadcast, but to create a digital environment that felt intimate, inspiring, and distinctly TED.
The solution
Built on BigMarker’s Virtual Event Platform, TEDWomen 2022 transformed its annual conference into an immersive, community-driven digital experience that captured the spirit of TED in every detail. The five-day festival unfolded across multiple virtual stages, each streaming live keynotes, panels, and interviews with TED’s hallmark production quality.
The event featured a rich and dynamic agenda that offered attendees a new way to engage each day, whether tuning in live to iconic talks, exploring curated screenings, or discovering exclusive interviews in the on-demand library. Complementing the content experience was a suite of interactive features that brought people together, including speed networking sessions, peer meet-and-greets, and virtual business card exchanges. Live support was available throughout, ensuring every participant could stay focused on connecting, learning, and being inspired.
Perhaps most notably, TED extended the life of the event through an evergreen on-demand hub, allowing new audiences to experience the talks and discussions long after the live sessions had concluded. This hub transformed the event into a lasting digital destination, attracting thousands of new viewers and continuing to generate engagement well beyond the original broadcast.
Results
Over five days, TEDWomen Presents 2022 welcomed nearly 1,500 live attendees, offering an uplifting and seamlessly produced virtual experience that embodied TED’s values of connection and storytelling. In the months (and years) following the event, the on-demand hub grew total registrations to nearly 5,000, as audiences continued to discover and revisit speaker sessions on their own time.
By extending the event’s reach through on-demand access, TED turned a single week of programming into a continually relevant digital experience. The result was an inspiring, accessible, and enduring event that proved the TED format and its community of changemakers could thrive in a fully virtual environment, reaching more people than ever before.
