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Event technology has never been more crucial to delivering effective meeting experiences, whether an IT director is coordinating a large company-wide event, helping host a customer success day across multiple rooms in one location, or providing sound and visuals for an industry-wide conference.
With the right event management technology, businesses can deliver a consistent experience to attendees who are spread out across locations while minimizing the challenges that limited IT staff have to address.
Here’s a closer look at some of the specific challenges of multiroom events, as well as strategies IT leaders can use to ensure they get it right every time.
In today’s business landscape, companies often hold a variety of large events that mix large spaces with smaller breakout rooms or pair in-person participants with virtual attendees. Examples include:
Event technology helps IT directors and their teams effectively manage complex multiroom events.
These events include a variety of stakeholders: employees, corporate executives, board members, customers or clients, and even members of the general public. Therefore, it’s key to deliver a strong audiovisual experience during the entire event. It not only underscores the professional delivery behind a business brand, but it also puts the spotlight where it should be: directly on the content.
The logistics and planning of multiroom events can pose challenges for IT leaders. For example, with participants spread across multiple rooms, IT managers need to find ways to navigate sound and AV capture. They need to ensure conference presenters look and sound their best as sessions are broadcast to all participants through the duration of the event. There’s also the bigger question of whether integrated conferencing technology is required to broadcast to virtual attendees who are using video platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
To ensure an IT team doesn’t run into insurmountable challenges — especially on the day of the event — businesses need to make an overall assessment of what the event entails and consider a flexible approach to organizing.
With the right event technology and strategy, it’s possible for businesses to seamlessly run simultaneous conferencing sessions in multiple rooms. Here are five helpful tips to consider:
IT teams should start by taking a look at each meeting room. The needs of one conference space can differ drastically from another depending on the existing infrastructure, size, layout, and how it will be used. Develop a plan for each room to cut the stress and concerns associated with multiroom events. From there, IT directors can more easily determine whether a flexible integrated solution is the right choice or if a specific setup will require more customization.
In today’s work environment, in-person events often have a digital component. If a business is going to rely on network bandwidth to bring in virtual participants, IT teams can broadcast a remote presentation or record events for later consumption. It’s also important to determine the network capacity of the overall space and assess whether specific rooms have issues requiring creative solutions such as connecting sound and visual equipment via cable to the wireless area network.
One of the biggest hurdles for multiroom events is troubleshooting sound. A person who speaks from a podium on stage requires a different solution than one who moves around and interacts with the crowd. Also consider whether the event will include a Q&A session and what solutions will make it easier for audience members to get involved. Increasingly, users are looking at ceiling audio solutions with microphones that automatically adjust to different room configurations. This eliminates a significant amount of work for IT teams and provides the flexibility of adjusting configurations based on attendance or last-minute presenter preferences.
Configuring different room settings to cover the audio and visual needs for in-person and virtual event attendees can be a challenge. With an integrated meeting room solution, IT teams bring audio, visual, and digital connectivity to video platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams on a single device. As a result, IT directors have more control using remote configuration software as needed, with the devices consistently delivering reliable performance.
Event technology significantly affects the overall experience at large events, so it’s smart to be proactive. IT directors can train presenters and onsite staff, as well as test the equipment in each room, prior to the event. They also can perform a walk-through before the event with presenters, administrative personnel, and onsite IT support staff to make them aware of common problems and ways to troubleshoot issues if they arise. Finally, they can evaluate staffing plans to have knowledgeable AV staff on call in the event more urgent issues occur.
It’s clear event technology can help busy companies deliver a high-end audio and visual experience during the most complex multiroom events. By utilizing flexible technology, planning ahead, and training staff and presenters, IT directors can effectively support company events no matter how multifaceted they are.
