Poster sessions are a cornerstone of academic conferences, research showcases, and industry events. They create space for meaningful conversations, spontaneous networking, and the exchange of ideas. But as more institutions shift toward digital collaboration, traditional poster sessions, whether physical or hosted on basic online tools, no longer deliver the same impact.
Physical venues are costly and often difficult to manage. Conventional online platforms fall short on interaction, making sessions feel static and disconnected. What participants really miss are those organic moments: walking up to a presenter, asking an unexpected question, or overhearing a conversation that sparks a new idea.
Designed to replicate the feel of a real conference hall, SpatialChat transforms virtual poster sessions into dynamic, immersive experiences that bring back the spontaneity and engagement of in-person interactions.
In this blog, we explore how SpatialChat elevates every aspect of virtual poster sessions—from movement and audio to customization and content delivery—helping organizers create events that are both memorable and meaningfully interactive.
Why Virtual Poster Sessions Need a Better Solution
Moving poster sessions online solved some logistical challenges, but it created new ones. Standard webinar tools restrict movement, limit interactions, and create a rigid presenter-audience dynamic. Attendees can’t wander, mingle, or discover posters that catch their eye organically.
Meaningful engagement is built on fluidity. When participants are able to explore freely, conversations become richer and more productive. SpatialChat is built with this philosophy at its core, bringing human-centered interaction back into virtual events through spatial movement, proximity-based audio, and customizable environments.
Bringing Posters to Life with Spatial Audio
One of SpatialChat’s most transformative features is Spatial Audio, a system that mimics real-world sound dynamics. As participants move closer to a poster or conversation group, the audio becomes louder; as they move away, it softens. This replicates the natural flow of conference hall conversations and allows multiple discussions to happen simultaneously without chaos.
What this means for poster sessions
- Attendees can stroll through virtual poster corridors.
- They can “walk up” to presenters and start conversations naturally.
- Presenters can engage with small groups just like at an in-person booth.
- Networking becomes fluid, spontaneous, and human.
At a recent virtual health conference, organizers used SpatialChat’s audio zones to simulate themed booths. Participants explored innovations at their own pace, drifting between posters and joining conversations as they emerged. The result felt surprisingly close to a live conference floor—something traditional webinar tools simply cannot recreate.
Creating a Branded, Immersive Poster Hall
Visual immersion plays a huge role in how attendees navigate and retain information during poster sessions. SpatialChat’s custom room backgrounds allow organizers to design branded poster halls that reflect themes, disciplines, or research categories. Instead of a flat, generic interface, each room becomes a curated environment.
Use cases include:
- A renewable-energy poster session with rooms themed around solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal research.
- A design conference with branded color palettes and visual identity.
- A university research showcase with department-specific virtual rooms.
These custom visuals help attendees intuitively understand where they are, what topics belong in each space, and how to navigate the event. And this results in a more organized and memorable experience.
Using the Stage Room to Connect Everyone
While poster sessions thrive on movement and informal discussion, many events also benefit from shared moments like opening remarks, keynote talks, demonstrations, or award announcements. SpatialChat’s Stage Room is designed exactly for this.
The Stage allows presenters to broadcast to a large audience with clarity and presence, creating a moment where everyone can come together before dispersing back into poster explorations.
Stage Room Highlights
- High-quality presentations and interactive lectures
- Browser screen sharing for demos
- Built-in Miro Board integration
- Fun, expressive “wow reactions” for audience feedback
This creates a cohesive event flow: Start with a keynote on Stage → move into poster interactions → return to Stage for closing remarks or discussions. It ties the entire experience together in a way that mirrors professional conferences.
Enriching Poster Sessions with Multimodal Content
A powerful poster session goes beyond static images. It thrives on layered content like videos, documents, links, quizzes, boards, and collaborative tools. SpatialChat supports this with rich multimodal capabilities, enabling organizers and presenters to build interactive, information-dense sessions.
1. YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitch Integrations
Add live streams, recorded demos, interviews, or product walkthroughs directly next to posters. Attendees can watch the content without leaving the virtual room.
2. Pinning PDFs
Presenters can pin full technical papers, datasets, whitepapers, or supplementary material beside their posters. Attendees can zoom in, download, or reference these documents while chatting with the researcher.
3. Interactive visuals (GIFs, images, icons)
Make posters visually engaging with additional graphics and media elements that enhance understanding.
4. Dynamic presentations with multi-screen sharing
Presenters can share multiple screens simultaneously, allowing them to display slide decks, web articles, tools, simulations, and even software dashboards all at once. This creates richer demonstrations and accommodates a wider range of content formats, giving attendees a more dynamic and informative viewing experience.
5. Integrations with Kahoot, Slido, MindMeister, and more
SpatialChat also supports real-time interaction by integrating tools such as Kahoot, Slido, and MindMeister. These integrations enable presenters to incorporate quizzes, polls, brainstorming activities, games, and collaborative mapping sessions directly into their poster interactions. As a result, attendees shift from passive viewers to active participants.
6. Seamless switching between Miro and Google Docs
No more juggling tabs or losing context. With smooth transitions, attendees can move between different content resources while staying focused on the poster at hand.
At a recent tech conference, one presenter used this combination perfectly: A live-streamed YouTube demo, a pinned PDF for deep-dive reading, and a Kahoot quiz to reinforce key points. The result was a multi-layered, immersive session that kept attendees engaged from start to finish.
A More Human Virtual Experience
SpatialChat isn’t just a tool. It’s a virtual venue designed to bring the energy of a real poster hall into the digital world. By combining movement, proximity, visual customization, and multimodal content, it recreates the human experience of walking into a conference, exploring what interests you, and sparking conversations that matter.
Whether you're hosting an academic symposium, a corporate innovation showcase, a student exhibition, or a global research conference, SpatialChat helps you create poster sessions that feel interactive, intuitive, and genuinely memorable. In a digital world where connection is often lost, SpatialChat restores the spontaneity, excitement, and meaningful interactions that poster sessions are meant to inspire.