When you are a professional event organizer, you don’t cancel.
Why?
Cancelling your event tells your client they’re not important enough for you to go the distance to make their event happen. Your attendees can’t come, your speakers can’t fly?
You find a way.
Otherwise, some new startup will take over your long-time client. All because you don’t have the capacity to fulfil. And in this case, help them go digital.
That’s what one of our clients did for their event. This client holds a conference every year to bring for suppliers and buyers in the medical industry to learn best practices when building pharmaceutical plants.
But our client didn’t want to just want a plain live-stream, they wanted to retain the conference experience without problems like these:
Keep reading to learn how they:
- Simulated backstage coordination for speakers across 3 countries
- Created an in-person experience for all 800 attendees
- Maintained company branding and identity, all while on a video-conferencing platform
Hosting a virtual summit isn’t as simple as turning on your computer webcam and getting a bunch of people to rattle off to their screens.
At the core, VStream Media is a control room for all activities going on during the virtual conference – maintaining your brand identity, guiding speakers on what to expect and managing conversations on the platform.
Why not just use a standard third-party platform?
In every event or conference, for every industry and business, there are unique challenges to solve—and generic “all-in-one” live-streaming platforms you find in Singapore just don’t have the tools to solve them.
But still, they are definitely essential! In fact, VStream partners with names like Cisco Webex, Zoom, Arkadin Studio, Gotowebinar, On24, Microsoft Teams and the like.
“Own” your live-stream and control the space
In a physical event, you have branding elements from coloured lights, banners, music, tags, from accessories to decorations.
Why should you disregard that in a virtual event?
This is the typical visual that you see on a video conference: 1 screen for each speaker filling up the entire display.
V-Stream allows you to configure backgrounds, transitions and all the visual/audio elements according to your theme.
With the speaker’s backdrop, chat background, transitions and all colours all in line with your brand, you can show the world that this is YOUR event.
This is the difference between a professional and a fly-by-night agency that’s just here for a quick buck.
Think about participants taking snapshots of their screen and sharing it on social media, with your client’s logos and branding plastered all over…
While video can help convert customers already on a path to purchase, it also enables a retailer’s existing customers to bring friends and family into the fold — 48% of consumers have shared a brand video on their social media profile.
That’s user-generated content and media assets they can use to grow their presence!
As much as this will impress the audience, you can assure your client that their name will be remembered. Who wouldn’t like such a proposition?
These tools enhance the viewer experience
If you’ve been on any video-conference call or watched any live-stream, you know that it can get quite boring.
It’s pretty much a talking head and a plain old background. So much for a speech at a conference, right?
That’s where V-Stream comes in.
Instead of ugly home backgrounds that scream “This is an amateur event!”, you can have speakers in a virtual set.
This is the classic set-up used by TV stations. Proven to increase audience engagement, simple to execute and highly effective.
Imagine going into a sales pitch with that in your back pocket.
You could say something like: “I have these virtual sets that viewers love watching. It’s interactive and it’s of a professional standard. If you work with us, we can get your speakers looking way more attractive and engaging in seconds. (And by the way, we have numbers to prove it).”
Pretty good pitch to differentiate your live streaming solution from the hundreds of competitors throughout Singapore.
Figure out which platform is best for you and how you can make your event a success.
You are a professional organizer, so prepare your speakers well
What normally happens before a speaker steps on stage?
You’ve got a crew that tests their mic, briefs them when to start, what the boundaries are, what to expect, directions on how to have a successful presentation on your set. That’s the norm, right?
Somehow when it comes to a virtual event, most downplay this. But this is extremely crucial.
And what happens is you end up calling the speaker on the phone, frantically mansplaining (explaining stuff that’s way too technical for them to understand…) what to do, when to come into the call.
Then you have the dreaded “can you hear me?” and “can you see me?” intros. Yuck!
That’s not delivering a professional experience.
Live Streaming from Singapore
Working with V-Stream will give you a technical team that’s already on a call with the speaker. Camera, lighting, sound, everything has been checked. Once given the cue, the speaker can go straight into his opening.
Seamless!
That’s because in the control room, you have the ability to start another call with the speaker, mute his mic and disabled his camera to the listeners (while communicating normally with him), the emcee is on standby for the transition, just like how it is in a real conference.
The control panel can also bring remote guests into the presentation room simultaneously and can interchange the audience view between speakers and graphics.
This means while your speaker is speaking, you can toggle between references and a close up of the speaker, where appropriate.
Now, this is professional.
This is exactly how the event went for the said client.
- A nearly full conference experience for 800 people, from the comfort of their homes
- Professional guidance for the speakers so they can focus on their content
- IP registration and branding for the client
- Trust from sponsors, vendors and publicity to others in the medical field
Hosting a live stream isn’t always easy. It means a lot of coordination and working closely with multiple people to keep everything running smoothly.
By working with the right partner, the planning, groundwork and professional set-up, our client company was able to create an outstanding online experience for their clients and audience members.
What are the best practices for a Livestream/ webinar
Some guiding principles that helped this client, which could also help when live streaming in Singapore.
Good preparation
Know the answers to questions such as:
- What is my goal with this live stream/webinar?
- Who is my audience?
- How many people do I expect to watch?
- How interactive do I want this live stream/webinar to be?
Pre-recordings
Have as much of your content pre-recorded as possible!
- While many of your speakers filming from their homes will have WIFI strong enough for the average call, their WIFI might still not be strong enough for presentation-level video quality
- Pre-recording your speakers can give the production team a chance to edit in graphics over any video lag or record multiple takes if needed
Engage your audience
Streaming a pre-recorded segment as if it is live, followed by an actual live Q&A makes for a better audience experience.
- Questions can be submitted via platform chats and monitored by your team
- A streaming director from the Live stream team can give the speaker the questions you highlight as most important to answer
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