COVID restrictions left Australasian Hotel Industry Conference and Exhibition (AHICE) and Design Inn with two options, delay or continue in a unique hybrid event format. They chose the second option and engaged Encore to help, utilising their latest technologies to deliver a professional engaging event from Hyatt Regency Sydney.
Encore designed and produced an event that enabled over 700 virtual and live attendees to engage and participate in AHICE each day, using their innovative, new Chime Live platform. The solution saw in-person and virtual attendees plus 110 in-room and virtual presenters streamed in from countries around the world including China, Dubai, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, UK and the USA. This made it the largest AHICE event held, ever. The aim was to create the event to deliver an experience for online attendees which was as close as possible to those in the room. The platform also provided numerous other advanced features for engagement, Q&A, speaker bios, virtual networking and a post event survey.
To ensure everyone in the room was COVID safe, Encore applied their stringent MeetSAFE guidelines which included procedures for safe distancing, room traffic, sterilising all AV equipment and microphones, deep cleaning with the venue and a dedicated hygiene technician.
The theme for AHICE 2020 was ‘Planning for the future of the Australasian hotel industry’ and couldn’t have been more poignant during the time of COVID restrictions as the industry looks to the future of the return of events. The hotel industry is vital to the events industry. It supplies a venue, resources, hospitality, hotel rooms, networking facilities, meeting rooms and more. So it was a great example of the return to events by AHICE to deliver an event, in a hotel, with in-person delegates utilising all the facilities, while at the same time, those not able to attend in person were able to listen, discuss, participate and engage in a way that was as close as possible to attending physically.
The technical solution
The Chime Live interactive streaming platform solution was critical engaging with the virtual delegates. The solution focused on the importance of delivering high quality content and maintaining a user-friendly platform to keep the virtual delegates engaged. Analytics from the engagement by delegates with the platform was key to demonstrating ROI of the technology and the event overall.
To ensure the technology would run seamlessly, all virtual speakers took part in a rehearsal to test internet connection, microphone quality and recommend appropriate backgrounds for when the presenters were speaking live. Moderators also had to be briefed on interviewing virtual speakers whilst having a face-to face audience in the room. These rehearsals were key to the professional end result and gave the conference a TV/broadcast look and feel.
The organisers of the event, Interpoint Event’s Operations Manager, Claire Graham commented,
“The event was a great success. We know that the hotel industry is facing a long journey back to normal and events like this are vital to bring the best in the hotel industry together to share best practice, future trends, developments and innovations.”
“We were particularly pleased with the experience online attendees and the engagement enabled by the Chime Live solution. The MeetSAFE procedures meant that everyone in the room felt that every measure to ensure the highest safety standards was maintained.”
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