HOW TO ORGANISE A HIGH-TECH LIVE EVENT
One of the first questions people ask when talking about in-presence events is “How can I organise a high-tech event?” Here is a brief and effective 5-step guide to discover how to do it: professionals involved, technology selection, sound, video and lighting service, the key role of direction, and finally, an up-to-date TO DO LIST of do’s and don’ts when organising a high-tech event.
DISCOVER SOME OF THE EVENTS WE HAVE ORGANISED
How to organise an event
For all industry professionals, ‘how to organise a high-tech event’ translates into ‘how to turn your clients’ ideas into reality’. We asked the Technoconference CEO – a leader in organising technology events since 1980 – what is the first step to follow:
“When organising an in-person event, the very first step is definitely to listen and advise. Start from an idea, understand it, transform it into a project and then implement it – for us, that is the first major challenge. Although,’ Lisa continues, ‘a good idea is of course not enough, because it may not be viable in practice. That is why it is always good to talk it over with event organisation experts and study its viability together.”
Lisa Grotti – Ceo | Tecnoconference
I. DISCOVER THE PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS INVOLVED
The professional people involved in organising an event are varied. There are three key players from the very beginning of an event, i.e. during its planning:
KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER
The Key Account Manager is involved from the earliest planning stage of an event. He or she analyses requests and suggests a range of solutions. A dedicated consultant who is by your side always, who oversees the smooth running of a project, ensuring that the budget, timing and quality of the event are met.
ART DIRECTOR
The Art Director outlines the artistic and creative concept of an event and is in charge of: developing a topic idea and a visual concept; choosing set-ups, sets, lighting, video projections and sound; coordinating creative activities during the event and planning marketing before, during and after the event.
PROJECT MANAGER
The Project Manager is the key to an event’s success. A highly qualified person who will guide you in the choice of the technology to be used. He or she follows the creative director’s guidelines and manages costs according to your budget.
We can sum up by saying that an idea is successful when it achieves its full extent in practice. Always rely on experts for the success of a high-tech event.
OUR SERVICES FOR ORGANISING AN EVENT
II. Trust your service for the operational phase
Step into the core of operations and discover together the key to organising a flawless technological event. Once you have chosen the location and made an accurate study of the spaces, you will need a highly qualified team for the technical set-up. You will have to rely on what is known as the sound-video-lighting service, an invaluable partner for organising an event without any hitches.
What is an audio video lighting service?
As the word itself suggests, the service offers professional services for those wishing to organise any kind of event. It is usually an all-in or full package – technology hire tailored to the needs of your event and the support of expert engineers who will take care of the set-up and dismantling of the equipment and its use.
Whether it is a Concert Hall, the Auditorium of a Convention Centre or a simpler Hotel meeting room, a good service will always find the right balance between architecture and technology, both for permanent and temporary installations.
Rely on industry professionals who can offer you expert assistance before, during, and after the event with state-of-the-art hi-tech equipment, certified experience, and a flair for problem solving. Tecnoconference is the service of TC Group, a leader in the events sector since 1980, with an average of 1500 projects managed per year and a staff of about 250 highly skilled technicians at your complete service.
WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY
III. Pick the technology to suit the goals of your event
The range of tech options for an in-person event is endless. To choose the most suitable ones for you, you must first identify the type of event you want to hold. For example a corporate event to advertise a company, product or service; a conference event to provide training or education; an institutional event for formal or role-affirming occasion; a charity event to raise funds or awareness for a specific topic; a social event to create a networking opportunity; a spectacular event to entertain or amuse guests or perhaps a celebratory event for a special occasion or anniversary.
And then have the aims of your events well in mind and based on them, choose the technology. We have prepared for you a precise list of goals to choose from along with the relevant technologies that should be selected.
1. Engage your audience
If your main goal is to engage your audience, there are many IT solutions to choose from, all with high technological content. One of the most successful companies in the international Meetings Industry is Meetbit, Software House TC Group, which offers the Event Tool App, designed for full engagement with the public. A customised app in line with the brand image of your event that can offer:
- Interactive services such as Q&A and real-time polls
- Polling and Surveys
- Gamification activities
- Social networking & chat platform
- Live streaming of the event
- Push notifications on programme changes or news
2. Be functional to the cause
To be instrumental to the purpose, your event must be equipped with a content management system with ongoing feedback, closely linked to the event programme and its guests, to enable a sense of trust in the cause. You will bet everything on speeches and flawless presentation management. An essential tool here is Slidebit, the Presentation Management System developed by Meetbit for TC Group, which will enable you to:
- Upload speakers’ presentations into the system
- Create dinamic projections at every change of presentation/session
- Manage unlimited rooms simultaneously
- Cope with last-minute changes in the programme
- Automatically record speeches
- Transmit room schedules to venue monitors
3. Excite
If, on the other hand, the aim of your event is to move people, the best approach will be to focus on creativity and leave plenty of room for emotional videos, striking images and guests with moving stories. The objective will be to trigger emotions so that the audience can identify with the story being told. Only one rule: turn to video production pros like TC Group. The video must be high quality both in terms of content and style in order to bring your audience and your potential future customers closer.
4. Network
If the purpose of your event is to network, you will need to devise solutions that provide plenty of opportunities for your sponsors to exchange and spread the word, such as those provided by the Meetbit Suite e-poster software. With e-poster you can ensure that your guests can enjoy all the multimedia content, videos and sponsored images at different times, as well as a direct line to the sponsor.
5. Be spectacular
If you want to organise a truly spectacular and memorable in-person event, you will need to focus on stage design, stage and lighting. Be creative with an immersive projection studio with state-of-the-art ledwalls, stages with sky platforms, lights, lasers, hi-tech theatre sets and mega installations. A dedicated designer, together with the director and dedicated engineers, will transform any idea into reality. For this you can rely on WALKIN, the Tecnoconference branch dedicated to corporate, which handles the most creative side of events.
6. Speak in all languages
If your event has an international asset and aims to speak worldwide in several languages, you should provide a high-tech simultaneous translation service. Simultaneous interpretation is a type of interpretation used for conferences with a large number of participants, where interpreters need to translate what the speaker says in real time. The technological equipment consists of one or more translation booths complete with: interpreter workstations, microphones for the speakers and headphones for the listeners.
You must therefore rely on faultless simultaneous translation systems such as those proposed by Tecnoconference, the only Italian company selected and certified by Bosch to be a member of the worldwide Congress Rental Network.
The Bosch Digital Congress Network Next Generation, can operate up to 32 languages simultaneously, with an excellent quality of the audio signal output, fully digital. All technicians are certified as “DICENTIS Technical Specialists” and are trained at the BOSCH headquarters in Eindohven and refresher courses every year. If required Tecnoconference will also be able to provide you with the best teams of interpreters according to the content.
7. Ensuring maximum broadcasting
The latest trend for all events designed to achieve the greatest distribution is the hybrid event formula. Virtual participation, combined with live attendance, allows a larger number of people to access the event content without having to move from their home or office. People who otherwise would not have attended the event for logistical, budget, time or commitment reasons. This is where technology comes to the fore with high-resolution streaming, virtual studios and a very high level of engagement for participants with Q&A, Polling, Survey and Chat tools such as those in LIVEbit, the web platform for hybrid & virtual events, present in the Meetbit Software Suite that can even record your event and allow it to be viewed outside the live event.
Conclusions
To sum up, this shortlist shows only a few of the most important objectives that an event can meet. There is no one-size-fits-all choice among them, as an event can have multiple ones. It is always the technology employed that decides the success of an event as it is the best able to support the participants in delivering a successful event experience.
IV. Select the best event director
Drawing up a gripping programme for your event, with a mindful and timely schedule to stick to during the live event, is not easy. The event director is there for that, and if you are planning a high-tech event you won’t be able to do without one. The director is the one who coordinates the activities taking place on stage and directs the technical team, as well as the creative team, defining the timing of the show. From the audience walk-in to the presentations by speakers; from video contributions to motion graphics; from microphones to camera set-up.
This is a leader’s role, managing stress, inspiring confidence, asserting himself with self-assertiveness, taking and conveying decisions to the entire operations team. Never forgetting to empathise in constant contact with the client, listening, solving problems creatively without losing sight of the big picture.
Among the duties is often that of show caller, the one who calls the cameras and outputs the audio and video contributions during the live show. This person has creative skills, a strong penchant for problem solving, knowledge of live direction techniques and related tools.
V. consult the to-do list for high-tech event organisers
Here is the only useful and up-to-date TO DO LIST if you are planning to organise a high-tech event with dos and don’ts:
AVOID DIY
Do-it-yourself approach does not pay off in these cases. Event organisation needs to be a smooth operation with one key component: experience. Hiring first-timers or, even worse, think you can do it yourself is a mistake that can lead to the flop of an event. Without forgetting a recovery plan ‘B’ that you’ll have to pull together in no time, which will be ineffective and very expensive.
Rule out cold-hiring of techniques
Organising a high-tech event requires a series of certified and certifiable skills. The human factor makes the difference here and you won’t get far without a real team by your side. You will need a team that works in unison, with diverse professional competences yet all together to reach the target of your event with dedication and motivation.
Don’t save at all costs
If you have a small budget for your in-person event, here are some ways to make the most of it without having to save on technology.
Location, choose dates not in high demand and do so well in advance. Transportation, research a strategic city point so you can save on transport costs for your guests. And in the case of international guests, choose the hybrid form with streaming and remote connections. Catering, consider a signature dish strategy instead of endless courses. Go paperless – get digital invitations. Finally, consider partnerships and sponsors to capitalise and offer exposure in return for services.
Refrain from grand design goals
Someone used to say less is more. An English saying that comes from the world of architecture and which, literally, means ‘less is more’. It is a changing trend from the past where it was generally thought that, when it came to grand projects of architecture, lavishness and sophistication must always be sought in design. On the contrary, ‘less is more’ disavows and goes beyond this idea by claiming that the best outcome, the ‘more’, is attained by designing a building according to strict minimalism.
Applying this assumption to the world of events, we can say that: an event’s success is not measured by its excesses, but rather by its effectiveness. Simplicity rewards and, with the help of the right professionals, it is always possible to turn a straightforward event into a story to be told.
Needless to say, to organise an event you will therefore have to:
- Rely on high-level experts such as Key Account Managers, Creative Directors & Project Managers
- Choose an audio video lighting service with proven experience in the world of events that can support you before, during and after the event
- Identify technologies according to your goals, mix them together to make your event a unique experience
- Don’t neglect the role of the director, who will be the key player on the day of your event who you will directly relate to and who will determine the success of the show
Having revealed all these details, we are ready to organise your high-tech event. The final tip comes from the founder of TC Group, Mario Grotti, whose motto was ‘You must always raise the bar’ to do more and do it better.
Our hubs
Tecnoconference is the right answer to your search for audio, video and lighting services for events in Florence, Rome and Milan. Our offer will allow you to create a high-tech event with guaranteed assistance before, during and after the event.
We have over 2000sqm of warehouse space between Florence, Rome and Milan with the ability to move throughout the country and internationally. We manage an average of 1500 events per year thanks to the availability of equipment and a team of specialized technicians that you will always have by your side.
We offer consultancy and support before the event, maximum operability during and after, thanks to 40 years of experience in the Meeting Industry and the precise desire to offer high-level audio, video and lighting services in Florence, Rome and Milan and throughout Italy.
Request a free quote, we will design together a unique event with technological services in line with your needs and budget.
