Virtual Open Day Guide: University and School Events That Work Year-Round

See3D is a London-based virtual tour company, and education is one of the sectors where 360° capture earns its keep most visibly. A school or university open day happens a handful of times a year; the decision-making it serves happens every single day. A virtual open day closes that gap — and the institutions doing it well treat it not as a pandemic-era substitute but as a permanent, always-on layer of recruitment. This guide covers what a virtual open day is, what students and parents actually expect from one, and how to build one that keeps working between event dates.

What is a virtual open day?

A virtual open day is an online event — or a permanent online resource — that lets prospective students explore an institution without travelling to it. At universities it typically combines live webinars with academic staff, Q&A sessions with current students, subject talks, advice on applications, finance and personal statements, and virtual tours of the campus and accommodation — for undergraduate and postgraduate study alike. At schools and colleges it's usually a recorded head's welcome, classroom and facilities footage, and a 360° tour parents can explore at their own pace. Either way, the perfect opportunity it offers is the same: getting to know a place and a feel for student life from anywhere in the world.

The format splits into two parts, and the distinction matters:

• The live layer — each scheduled virtual event: webinars, talks and chat sessions students join on the day. Time-bound, staff-intensive, great for engagement.
• The always-on layer — the virtual campus tour, on-demand videos and course content that remain available all year, whenever someone wants to explore.

The live layer creates the event. The always-on layer does the recruiting for the other 360 days.

Why should every university and school run virtual open day events in 2026?

Three audiences make the case on their own:

International students. For a family in Lagos, Mumbai or Kuala Lumpur, attending a UK open day in person is rarely realistic. A virtual open day — anchored by a genuinely explorable campus tour — is the only way they will ever walk your corridors before accepting an offer. For institutions recruiting internationally, this is not a nice-to-have; it is the shop window.

Domestic students shortlisting. Most applicants narrow five UCAS choices from a much longer list, often between the July open day season and the September application window. The institutions they can explore properly online survive the cut more often than the ones offering a photo gallery and a campus map. Independent research commissioned by Google in 2015 found that people aged 18–34 were 130% more likely to book a business with a virtual tour on its listing — and that cohort is precisely the age group weighing where to apply, study and build a career.

Parents. For schools especially, the second visit is often the parent revisiting alone, in the evening, checking details — the science labs, the dining hall, the state of the toilets. A 360° tour answers those questions honestly at 11pm on a Tuesday.

What should students expect when they register and attend online?

The institutions that do this well converge on the same checklist — these are the resources a student should find when they sign up and join a virtual open day:

• A virtual campus tour — explorable, not just a video. Students should choose where to look: lecture theatres, libraries, studios, sports facilities, accommodation rooms and communal kitchens.
• Live subject talks and webinars — discipline-specific sessions with academics covering undergraduate and postgraduate study, scheduled and recorded so anyone who can't attend can catch up on-demand.
• Current student Q&A — live chat or panel sessions where visitors meet the people actually living and studying there; authenticity matters more than polish.
• Accommodation walkthroughs — consistently the most-viewed content; nobody commits to a room they haven't seen.
• Application, finance and admissions advice — personal statements, the application process, deadlines, funding; the practical content parents stay for.
• Clear registration and follow-up — students register and sign up by email, receive the link to each session in advance, and get the catch-up content afterwards. A useful resource hub beats a one-off broadcast.

How do virtual tours of the campus and facilities fit in?

The campus tour is the load-bearing element — the interactive opportunity to explore that visitors remember and return to. It's also where quality is most visible. A blurry, stitched-together tour of a flagship campus sends exactly the wrong message about an institution asking students to commit three years and significant fees.

We capture campuses with the Realsee Galois M2, producing 134-megapixel panoramas at 16K resolution — detail that holds up when a prospective student zooms in on the equipment in a lab or the books in the library. Tours are delivered in 3–5 working days from the scan, embed directly into open day pages and prospectus sites (see our guide to embedding a virtual tour on your website), and we offer flexible hosting including permanently hosted tours with no recurring fees — which suits content like a campus, that stays accurate for years.

One scan also serves more than recruitment: the same tour works for accessibility previews (students with anxiety or mobility needs orienting themselves before arrival), induction, parent communications and even Google Business Profile visibility.

Practical advice: how do you run open days and events that convert?

A few tips from the institutions getting this right:

1. Lead with the tour, gate the webinars. Let anyone explore the campus freely; ask for registration only for live sessions. The tour does discovery; registration captures intent.
2. Make accommodation explorable room by room. It's the highest-interest, highest-anxiety content for both students and parents.
3. Record everything. Every live talk becomes on-demand content within 48 hours — applicants in other time zones can't attend your 2pm webinar.
4. Keep it current. A virtual open day with last year's dates and a tour of the old library quietly damages trust. The always-on layer needs an owner.
5. Measure it. Tour analytics show which facilities prospective students actually look at — useful intelligence for the next prospectus, not just the next open day.

See examples of our capture quality in our portfolio.