A new kind of experience

This time last year I published an article here about a truly wonderful industry awards event I had been involved in. It was for the security industry and was produced by the New Zealand Security Association, a not-for-profit industry association. The awards were nothing spectacular; no band, no keynote speaker, no dramatic opening sequences - but it had a lot of heart and was celebrating a diverse range of New Zealanders doing important work keeping us safe.

Fast forward one year and yes, global pandemic, the event industry on the ropes, everything cancelled - you know what happened. I was asked by the NZSA to consider what they might do. They needed to confirm or cancel their Christchurch venue for 2020 but were unsure what they could do if they did call it quits. Even with New Zealand's great work to suppress the virus here, event scheduling meant that we needed to either confirm or cancel back in May, and cancel they did.

The NZSA did want to have some sort of event this year and a video feed of sorts was the obvious solution. And this is where my 20 years of working in experience marketing is suddenly worth nothing, and everything. Attendees were expecting a three course dinner, open bar and networking. We might deliver a YouTube experience. There was an obvious gap in the attendee's experience expectations and what the reality might be.

But with experience strategy the first step is to look at your audience. Usually companies that have finalists book a table and send along a few of their team. They dust of their suits, and if from out of town, get a flight and a night in a hotel with a bonus hangover. The vast majority of attendees are usually executives from nominated companies and those selected as a 'reward' to join them.

But if we are live streaming then our audience profile changes dramatically. This event could include the whānau of finalists, the clients of the companies, neighbours, mates - anyone. So the first step was to pick the timing and duration. The usual three hour dinner event includes just over an hour of awards presentation, not including winner's speeches. We figured if we went for 5 to 6pm on a Friday then companies might lay on some hospitality and stage a watch party. Here's hoping.

Next was format and talent. We had at least three speeches that needed to be included - and two of the speakers are not in Auckland. So pre-recorded videos were needed there. We choose the same MC as last year, Te Radar. He has significant TV experience so was even better for this, than he was last year, where he was brilliant.

I worried about the feel though. Usually the combination of music stings from the audio team and applause in the room help lay the foundation along with ballyhoo lighting and videos to build a celebratory feel when finalists and winners are announced. We could still do music stings but that just being canned music seemed a bit flat. So, what about a DJ? Could work! After some hunting I had DJ Lo Key, Mike Haru, recommended and he agreed to participate. Like us, he had never done anything like this before but he turned out to be an "inspired inclusion".

Vidcom in Auckland who had previously supplied the AV for the dinner event and had recently added a live streaming capability. They had built a small studio in the loading dock of their warehouse and were already doing some events and like many they are working to hone their live streaming and online event offering. They were keen and brought to the table two key elements: the ability to bring text messages on screen from viewers and robotic cameras allowing a crew of two to handle three cameras, audio, video mixing, live streaming and keeping me from having a stroke.

I'm lucky the key contact at the NZSA is my partner Tacia . Last year I produced the onscreen content and called the show for free. She trusts in my ability to deliver and she asks a million very relevant questions. I scoped out the experience, prepared an estimate and the CEO signed it off.

Cut to Friday the 7th of August and we are loading in and getting set to go in the middle of a major rain storm (did I mention the studio has a tin roof?). And at 5.01pm Te Radar walked up the lectern and greeted the viewers and away we went.

No, not everything went as planned and no, not everything looked as good as it could have. But considering the very modest budget and reasonably reserved nature of the awards and industry, it went great. The stream stayed up with no issues, the TXT messages flooded in, DJ played some great beats, Gary's suit was awesome and Te Radar nailed his delivery.

We had just under 300 unique viewers on the night - keeping in mind some companies had 20 to 30 people in their office watching one screen - and over 200 more on-demand views since. With nominees from about 20 companies, I was very happy with that.

What worked:

The duo: DJ Lo Key and Te Radar slotted into a nice rhythm from the get go. I planned for DJ to play for 15 minutes before the start and for 30 minutes after but I also asked him to bring some applause and music samples we could use as each winner was announced. He took it further and during rehearsal played some sweet little tunes and beats while the winner's bios were being read. By award three he had his timing down-pat finishing on Te Radars closing comments. DJ did not have a script and couldn't see the on screen slides so was going off only Te Radar's tone and flow. Te Radar himself loved having someone in the room to interact with. A 'Tonight Live' vibe developed between the two of them, and although DJ wasn't miked up (fix that next time) the interaction is obvious to the viewer and allowed Radar to take his eyes off the camera and do the little improvs he is so good at.

The breaks: I also allowed for two breaks during the show of two minutes each. This was done to allow for comforts stops and to give some flexibility on timing; Te Radar was 20 minutes under time the previous year. The breaks though also allowed the audience to stop and catch their breath, refresh their drinks and slap and winners with them on the back. They also allowed DJ to build on the chilled but party vibe which is what an awards event should be about.

The audience interaction: We managed to get the SMS service running about 30 minutes before show. We published the phone number on screen in the first few minutes of the show and the first TXT came in 15 seconds later! And 130 more followed. Now considering this awards event usually has 300 in the room from 20 major companies and a total of 140 members, I did not have high hopes. But I did know from some informal discussions in the week before that several companies were indeed planning staff watch parties. The messages we received were great - lots of 'congrats' and 'great job' and call outs to colleagues around the country. The watch parties we heard about sounded great too. We suggested this is pre-event comms and many jumped onboard - the timing suited it. Below is a picture from one of them.

What didn't: I could pick it apart all day but from my point of view but I missed a couple of key things. I used a new PPT template but the sizing of elements was as per the previous year were we used a 40ft screen. Watching it on a laptop or mobile it was pretty hard to see some of the text in the slides. I didn't leave enough time to produce mock-ups of the various on screen states to check across viewing screen types. Next year that will change. There were some audio issues, again more time for pre-prod would have helped and I would have spent more time on TXT message placement and look.

I also should have allowed more rehearsal time. They were planned but technical glitches ate into that time. Gary Morrison the CEO hadn't used autocue before and his quick rehearsal wasn't enough. Luckily he had a great sense of humor and carried it well during his live, in studio, wrap-up speech, while we frantically took control of his autocue to slow it down! The pre-records were not perfect. It's hard to direct when you are not there but recently with another client I have been doing great direction of speakers using Hangouts or Zoom to provide cheap and cheerful autocue and monitor their presentations. There were a few other things but again, more time and money would have solved those.

The big miss though was the winner's speeches. They were gold last year as I outlined in my article after that event, but including some remote video interaction was just a level of complexity we couldn't afford, but next year, who knows.

What's next?

The feedback so far has been great. Everyone seemed to enjoy the show, the watch parties looked like fun and I think the timing and vibe worked for everyone. We are hopefully heading to Christchurch next year and we are already discussing a change to the event format to allow the live stream and audience interaction to continue.

Having an industry awards event where only executives or the selected few attend does an injustice to all of those in that industry that bust their gut every day to make that sector better. That is especially true this year as security are essential services workers during a pandemic. Allowing everyone to not just watch but participate helps flatten the industry and brings in family and friends to experience the joy of seeing their loved ones name and photos on screen and hear what amazing work they have been doing.

If this pandemic has done one positive thing, it has allowed us in the event industry to rethink all of the experiences we deliver and not just make them 'on demand' or 'live to you' but really reworked to be different kinds of experiences.

This was far from perfect, but the other thing the pandemic has shown us is that anyone with a camera can stage an event and create content. Be it people like DJ Wildflower with her fabulous Zoom sets that turned kitchens into dance halls, or Tik Tok kids building vast audiences with clever, funny and sometimes deadly serious videos or watching parliamentarians debate each other from their dining room tables. They are all connecting in some way or another.

I have sat at million dollar events and cringed as dross is delivered by the dreadful to the disengaged. Budget doesn't guarantee gold because at their heart all an event needs to do is build a space where people can communicate and connect. And if we do that with honesty, and humor and heart, it works regardless of the look and feel. That is our brief as experience creators.

This was not a game changing event, but it worked and for me and team at the NZSA it was a step along a new path we are interested to follow.

Live Stream On Demand can be viewed here. Screen shots are below and right at the bottom is the link to a video produced by the boss of the grand award winner, Wade Coneybear, shot using security cameras at their office watch party. Nice seeing their team celebrate their guys big win.

Click on link below to view Facebook post of the grand winner (it's ok, it's safe and will make you smile)