Engaging A Remote Audience

Host Sites‍

Up to this point we have envisaged either an entirely on site, an entirely online or a hybrid event, however there is another option that has become increasingly popular and that is to offer physical or online host sites. A host site may be a home, a church, an office or any other location where attendees can gather in smaller groups to participate in the event. Providing an excellent host site experience like every other component of a world changing event needs intentionality. We will leave the hospitality and in person network elements to one side now and focus on the broadcast and online components:

Ensuring Good Video and Audio for Your Host Site‍

The first thing that is important to ensure at your host site is that you have good video and audio quality.

This might be as simple as casting the video player onto a large TV in a home or an office. If you are projecting onto screens in a larger church building, it is advisable to ensure the picture quality is good enough and that the audio and video are correctly synced before the event. At Sardius we typically advise all attendees to log in to the event fifteen to thirty minutes before the event to ensure that there are no issues with your device (keeping in mind that many problems faced online are solved by rebooting the device, it is advisable to allow time if this is needed), however with larger host sites, we typically advise that it is good practice to do a host site test to iron out any technical niggles should they exist.

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Second Screen Experience‍

With screen casting becoming an increasingly popular way of engaging with an event, especially within a host site context, the question is then asked how members of the host site can engage in some of the context giving and interactive features of the event such as how attendees can find out details of who is presenting now and what is coming up or how the host site audience can engage in chat or ask questions or respond to polls and trivia questions. The solution to this challenge has been the creation of a second event experience which simply includes these interactive features and is built primarily for the mobile device. This can be used in host site situations as well as actually on site in a physical in person event and gives the event producer the added benefit of obtaining better quality analytics from the event than one IP address casting the event to a big screen would achieve

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Reaching a Global Audience - Timezones and Language

During the COVID lockdown many people have longed for the return of in person events. There are certainly many benefits to being in the same physical location as other attendees. However there are similarly a number of benefits that can not be achieved with an in person event. We have already addressed the ability for presenters to join the event from all around the world and this global nature also applies to opportunities related to the broadcasting of the event. If a hybrid event is taking place in California, there would previously have been an expectation that if someone in Europe wished to join the live event at 7pm in Los Angeles, they would have to be watching at 3am in London. However if your event has a sizeable global audience or if one of your metrics is to increase the number of global attendees there are a number of adjustments you can effect to make the event more accessible to these attendees:

• ‍Translate the Broadcast, this can be done as an alternate audio stream or with closed captions
• ‍Translate the Experience, the entire event experience can be translated into the target languages
• ‍Adjust the Timing of the Event, with the advent of Sim Live, it is absolutely possible to host the event in the desired timezone of a targeted global audience.