Lessons learned from virtual events.

Last night I came home from five days on site.?I stage managed a two day a high profile conference held on the campus of the company’s corporate headquarters.?The conference coincided with the company opening their doors after a two year ‘work at home’ policy as the result of the pandemic.?There was no shortage of festivities celebrating the event.?The irony of what happened during the conference was not lost on anyone, though not a word was spoken, or at least heard.?

Including a day of rehearsals and two days of show, we replaced our front of house audio engineer (to testing positive to Covid) every day.?The staging company, to their credit, planned for such a contingency so our third front of house engineer for the three days was just as capable as our first and not any of them ever missed a cue.?

On the second day of the conference we all came in for our 7:00 AM call.?The session started at 9:00 AM.?Not long after we arrived it was learned that one of the first presenters tested positive the night before.?The video crew immediately went to work using Microsoft Meetings and within 20 minutes had her feed dialed into the system.??We rehearsed with her intro ‘video bumper’ and we were on our way.?Three hours later when she presented in show, it looked like it was planned this way from day one.

I think there are many lessons here.?For starters, the pandemic is far from over.?Ballroom space may be at a premium and many are eyeing all the work opportunities they have been starving for in the last two and a half years, but don’t let the lack of masks you are noticing give you a false sense of ‘we’re safe now’.??Secondly, the pandemic has taken the term ‘back up’ to a whole new level.??We had many presenters and panels over the two days.?We needed an A1 and two A2’s.??All were capable of mixing.??As each FOH engineer tested positive, the next person in line moved up.?In case you are wondering, at the end, it was a stagehand with audio experience helping out in the audio dept.?Lastly, perhaps because of all the virtual events the video department has set up in the last two years, it was a no brainer for them to have that presenter do her presentation from home.?It was a huge benefit to have this kind of confidence in the crew.?

Finally, I would like to give a shout out to our executive producer, Denise Cannon, who really is the model of grace under pressure.??She managed to keep an eye on all the content/presenter changes while letting the technical crews do what they do best.?When it was all said and done we didn’t lose any time with all the changes.

One thing for certain.?We will continue to see Ballroom events go hybrid for a very long time and as such, those who prepare with the appropriate back up, both in gear and personnel, will fare the best.

Have a great show, and above everything else, be safe!

Miles Kapper