Planning Your Event - Production

Whether you are having an entirely in person, a hybrid or an exclusively virtual event there are a number of questions that you need to answer. One of the first questions is related to venue and production. Often this seems to be answered more easily for in-person than online events. It is natural that if you are having an event for fifteen people you may choose to have it in a boardroom and ensure there are enough refreshments in the room for the duration of the meeting. In contrast, if you are presenting to 15,000 people you will rent an arena with adequate audio visual production so that the audience does not have any challenges with seeing and hearing what is going on.

Similar principles are true for online events. And yet sometimes the production elements for online events are not thought through thoroughly. WebRTC (Real Time Conversations) and other video conferencing applications are amazing tools for real time interactions. However their strength is in connecting individuals through low latency video connections, usually for small numbers of people, and not broadcasting a high quality message to thousands. If you are having your fifteen person boardroom meeting and you wish to take it online, then utilizing a WebRTC application is the right choice. If you are broadcasting a message to thousands, using a low latency application is probably not the right choice.

Why Low Latency Video is Not Currently the Right Choice to Broadcast to Large Audiences

Production Value‍

If an individual is invited to present a TED Talk type presentation, there will often be nerves involved. The individual has to get the presentation just right - there are numerous books on the market of how this can be done effectively. In addition to the person’s presentation and how they look on the day, the presentation is typically given on a thought out, clutter free stage with high quality cameras placed perfectly, lights and audio, which mean that the only thing that is focused upon is the message. Everything is just right to present that message. Video conferencing lends itself to convenience, extemporaneous communication and ultimately disposable content, which is often not the right feel you want for a high quality presentation. While a presenter can prepare their content in a similar manner to a TED Talk, presenting it through a webcam in a home with poor lighting, poor audio and a distracting background, with a high risk for video dropout and audio sync issues and typically no tech help, is not an ideal solution. 

(It must be noted that there are definitely ways to improve the production quality of video conference conversations, such as recording on a higher quality camera with better lighting and audio - however this can often be logistically challenging.)

The “Buffering” Issue‍

Personal experience and larger analytic studies reveal that audiences hate buffering, frame drops and other glitching in video. Low latency video technologies currently make the risk of such occurrences happening much greater and the risk is increased the larger the audience. To avoid such issues when presenting to larger audiences we suggest that you utilize a professional encoding solution for live situations.

Thinking about what you want to communicate and how that will be communicated needs to be a holistic process whether you are planning in person or online. What is the content, how is it presented via video (ie. what is the production quality) and what platform you are using to present it are all relevant questions to answer. Sardius has a high quality, interactive platform. However, if the production quality and the content of the video is not good, then the overall experience will not be a compelling one.