Event Camp Twin Cities

This speaker interview was conducted by a rockstar Event Camp Twin Cities Speaker Jenise Fryatt.

You don’t have to be an audio visual geek to understand the basics of producing a great hybrid event. Just ask Brandt Krueger. With more than 15 years experience providing technology support for corporate meetings, conferences and events, Brandt has certainly earned his geek cred.

As Director of Corporate Technology for metroConnections, a sponsor of Event Camp Twin Cities, Brandt will be using some of that know-how to help pull together a complicated hybrid event production Aug. 25 & 26. But Brandt insists that all an event producer really has to ask is, “What is the audience experience?”

Brandt recently agreed to answer a few questions about hybrid event production and what is being planned for ECTC.

JENISE: Would you share a little of your experience with hybrid and virtual events?

BRANDT: Despite the fact that hybrid and virtual events have been on my radar for almost two years, very few of our clients have actually pulled the trigger. The bigger the company, the slower they move- so while a few technology-embracing software and technology companies have started to try them, many “big financial” companies haven’t even considered it.

Many associations still worry that virtual attendees will cannibalize their attendance. The word is getting out that that’s not the case- and when done properly, hybrid events can actually increase attendance at the next meeting.

I firmly believe that within a few years though, some form of virtual attendance will be the norm, rather than the exception. As companies become less tied to offices and countries, we’re going to see more and more hybrid and virtual meetings. That’s why, despite having only a few of our clients actually taking the plunge, I’ve tried to keep up to date on as much of the trends and technology as possible. As our clients decide to take those first baby steps, I want to be ready for them. For those that have started, what’s the next step?

JENISE: What do event producers need to think about when producing hybrid events, that they don’t have to think about when producing face to face events?

BRANDT: There’s a lot to keep in mind, but it can all be boiled down to one thing: What is the audience experience? The best meetings already come from that viewpoint. The difference is, we now have TWO audiences to keep in mind. Just as you need to keep the in-person audience in mind as you balance budget with screen size (will they be able to read the CEO’s PowerPoint on a 9×12 screen?), you need to know exactly what your virtual attendee will see on their machine and plan accordingly. Depending on your live stream vendor, that same CEO’s presentation might be 3/4 of the screen or postage stamp-sized. Are the Q2 numbers still legible? What does that spinning globe graphic do to the live feed? You don’t have to know all the technical jargon of how it all works- just know what it looks like from the user’s end.

JENISE: Will the ECTC production be different than other hybrid events you’ve produced? What types of challenges will it present?

BRANDT: Yes and no. It’s the same in that much of the core technology is the same: Laptops, Internet connections, video switchers and audio mixers, microphones, cameras, and lights. That’s what’s nice about hybrid production- there’s really not all that much that’s different in the way of technology. Depending on the size of your meeting, you literally might be able to tie in some web-streaming tech and you’re pretty much done.

What’s different is the experimental spirit of Event Camp, and especially Event Camp Twin Cities. Sam and Ray are always trying to push the technology to it’s limits, and easily spend 50% of their time imagining things from the viewpoint of the virtual attendee and the pods. They are in no way an afterthought, and I think that was felt throughout the community last year. The challenge is to take their vision of what that experience could be and convert it into back into cold hard tech. To be honest, it’s kind of like being an Imagineer at Disneyland.

JENISE: What trends do you see in event production in general? Are hybrid and virtual events going to become passe’?

BRANDT: Trends in this business are a funny thing. We tend to think of trends like most people think of time- linear, ever progressing, maybe a little cyclical as hem lines go up and down and puffy winter vests become “in” again (“Hello? McFly?”)

More and more so, production trends are slippery, twisty, rapidly cyclical, ever-shifting. An example: Prezi. Prezi (www.prezi.com), for those that might not know, is an online-based presentation software that zooms around a giant canvas from bullet point to bullet point (or image, or video) rather than transitioning from slide to slide. Most people in our industry have at least tried it as an interesting alternative to the boring old PowerPoints.

Prezi launched in 2008, so some people have not only known about it for years, they’ve already gotten bored with it and moved on. For them, that “trend” has passed. So many of our clients, though, have never heard of it. For them it’s something totally new- so every three months or so I hear, “Have you ever heard of a program called Prezi?” and I can usually mouth the word Prezi with them as they say it. For me to dismiss them as a trend that’s passed would be silly. As long as it doesn’t look as outdated as a puffy vest, we should encourage our clients to try new things, even if they’re old to us.

I might be wrong with my above prediction about them becoming the norm, but the same goes for hybrid events. Even if they are just a trend, even if they’ve been around for a couple of years now, and even if some might have already become bored with them and moved on, there are so many clients who haven’t even tried them and could reap so many benefits from them. Maybe they’ll get bored and cycle on to something else, but that’s not for us to decide. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “Let’s Get it Started” at a meeting or event…

Jenise Fryatt’s blog Sound n’ Sight covers events industry thoughts and features with an audio visual and social media bent. Jenise is also co-owner/marketing director of Icon Presentations Audio Visual for Events located in Southern California. She describes herself as an “events industry cheerleader” who is also a yoga and improv devotee trying to stay in the present.