AV Production Tips For Hybrid Events

AV Insights & Advice - Episode 14

Hi, I'm Brian Stewart, Vice President of Sales with Clarity Experiences, and I am here with my co-host, Adam Findley, Senior Producer, at Clarity Experiences. We are going to talk about AV production tips for hybrid events in today’s episode. 

Engaging virtual attendees with live attendees

In the virtual world and the hybrid world, the challenge becomes figuring out how to engage the virtual attendees just as much as the live attendees. For the in-person audience, nothing has changed, although it's been a bit since we have seen someone on a live event stage. The same things are still important: 

• Great lighting
• Interesting visuals and charts
• Interesting content. 

For the remote audience, we need to see something slightly different. We need to see a more immersive camera angle so they can see the expressions of the presenter. It’s helpful if you can mix the camera shots to sometimes show the presenter on stage and sometimes mixing that with a wider shot so the remote audience can see the live audience in the room.

How to connect the two audiences

Some events include monitors, which have virtual attendees in the room. Think big LED screens and big projector screens on the side of the room in this scenario. It's important to pay attention to where you place these screens in the room. If you put them too front and center, it can be distracting. People aren't going to be watching the presenter, they will be watching the people at home. 

You also want to make sure you can take questions from both the in-person audience and the virtual audiences. There are software and platforms that we can help you out with to accomplish this. For both audiences, whether it’s videos or slides, the screens you're showing them on have to be big enough so that everyone can see them, whether that’s in the room or on a laptop at home. 

The most important aspect is to take the pressure off of your presenters by having a great moderator. The moderator is going to take the questions that come in from the virtual audience and the questions that come in from the live audience and pass those questions onto the presenters on stage. This allows the presenters to answer questions without having to worry about the technology. The moderator can not only take Q&A from the audience, but they can also engage as attendees.

That's a Wrap

That’s all we’ve got for today’s episode around AV production in hybrid events. Thanks for watching and we will see you on the next episode of AV Insights & Advice!