Growing up on a farm, I herded a lot of sheep, cows, and the odd goat. Goats are odd. It takes teamwork, collaboration and communication (and a Border Collie or two) to get 200 fledgling hoggs and their wayward lambs across a fast-flowing burn. Large hybrid multi-site events require remarkably similar skills, though there’s less chance of losing a welly in the mud.
Moorhen Media were tasked, in partnership with Enterprise Webcasting Platform ON24, with the production of an event for healthcare company EISAI. The event was hosted primarily from the Pullman Hotel in London, with six UK satellite sites (also with local audiences of up to 30 people) who needed to be able to watch the main event in real time and be able to join in the discussion. Given a tightly scheduled whole-day timetable, dominated by plenary presentations from London with multiple question and answer sessions involving all satellite sites, the event needed to be slick and seamless with high production value.
We are no stranger to this type of event. Moorhen Media have previously worked with ON24 on a live video webcast for MSD which followed a similar format, with the addition of a large global online audience! We are very familiar with the needs and requirements of pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, counting Abbot Laboratories and AstraZeneca as other industry behemoths for which we have provided production services.
Event Planning
As with any event, a successful outcome germinates in the pre-production and planning stage. We worked very closely with EISAI and ON24 to work through the exact requirements and their ultimate goals, so that we could shape our service to their needs, and budget, to ensure the best looking, best sounding, best value Return on Investment. Because that’s what they really want, at the end of the day.
The venues had already been selected. Alongside the primary London venue, located conveniently between the transport hubs of Euston and St Pancras/Kings Cross stations, ESAI had chosen hotels with easy access to the primary workplaces of the audience members, all of which were healthcare professionals. These were in Bristol, Birmingham, Oxford, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle upon Tyne.
Collaboration Tools
Moorhen Media use vMix as our primary video mixing tool, Joe Radford being our resident vMix genius! The latest version of vMix has two integrated communications tools, most notably (and most recently) the global Covid platform of choice, Zoom. We always recommend this as the communications technology to link all of the sites. Having Zoom built into vMix has radically streamlined how we run events where remote participants or presenters are to take part. Back in the bad old days we’d have needed a drone laptop for every location, that we’d screen-share into the vision mixer, but now it’s all integrated in vMix.
In addition, more than any other tool, such as Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx or Google Meet, all of which we have used to successfully run events, Zoom allows us more control over the process, provides better diagnostics and somehow just seems more reliable and robust. Zoom, as a company, have an understanding of this type of production need. And, given the explosion in use at the start of the decade, it’s a tool that we find users are familiar with (more thoughts on the advantages of Zoom can be found in Edwin’s last blog post).
Due Diligence
Despite user familiarity, without a reliable internet connection at each venue, it would all have been in vain. We always do our due diligence and ensure that we visit, in person, each room that has been booked to check:
a) Suitability for the audience the client expects to host, alongside the equipment that we are likely to need to bring. A broom cupboard next to a busy motorway doesn’t tend to work so well.
b) Any existing audio-visual facilities in the room that we might be able to utilise. In this case, screens for the audience to watch the presentations from London and/or the other satellite sites and audio systems built into the room allowing them to hear. Making use of existing infrastructure ensures a more efficient set up and can bring considerable savings for the client. They tend to like that!
c) The internet connection that the venue can provide us. We always request wired internet access, ideally a dedicated connection (though this is not always possible, but there should be sufficient bandwidth headroom) and we run thorough testing to check that this meets our needs.
d) Access to the room. We’d always prefer to set up our equipment the afternoon or evening before the event. It adds a margin of safety, giving us time to resolve any unforeseen issues that might crop up between the advance site visit and the event itself. Building work has been known to cut cables feeding the room, and I.T. guys love to fiddle.
Edwin Barnes and Joe Radford spent several days between them, travelling the length and breadth of the country visiting each room in each venue in turn, producing detailed site survey reports so that we could brief ON24 and EISAI and put together our final specification document.
Logistics
Once we had final agreement and sign-off from EISAI, we were able to lock in the resources. Asking the EISAI representative in each satellite location to set up a laptop with a built-in webcam and connect to Zoom wasn’t going to be sufficient for local audiences of 20-30! Each location needed the following:
1x High definition (HD) camera, with zoom lens, on a tripod
1x Wireless handheld microphone
1x Laptop with audio and video capture card
1x Large screen and loudspeakers so the audience could see and hear the presentations.
The venues were able to provide the screen, but we supplied all other infrastructure, along with one of our multi-skilled crew members to set everything up, monitor the equipment during the event, liaise with the EISAI representative and communicate with the London crew. We do logistics well!
In London we provided our standard ‘multi-camera with PA package’ for 150-person audience. This included:
3x High quality HD Cameras
1x vMix high performance vision mixer laptop (with live back up)
2x Confidence monitors: one for the panel, one for the lectern to show slides or remote sites
7x Sennheiser radio microphones
1x 32 channel digital audio mixer
1x PA system consisting of 4x active loudspeakers
1x Stage wash lighting
1x Stage backdrop uplighting
We had access to the Pullman’s large ballroom the day before the event. The Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Oxford locations could set up in advance too, however Glasgow and Newcastle could only load in the morning of the event. With the first plenary session commencing at 10am, it meant a very early Greggs breakfast for those guys!
The ‘on-it’ attitude and skill of the remote crew, our detailed advance video-briefings, and documentation sent to them prior to arrival shone through in set up. There were a couple of things to iron out, such as interfacing with the venue-provided screens in each location and a bit of discussion in one location as to the best place for the camera and tech desk (client indecision) but nothing that couldn’t be quickly solved.
A Smooth Event
Getting the London location set up, as well as having two thirds of the satellite locations rigged and tested, the night before contributed to a calm, almost serene, atmosphere on the day of the event. The final two locations had no trouble setting up and making connection with the London hub in the morning.
Presenters tend to have busy schedules, especially in healthcare, and always arrive right at the last minute, but our ‘talent’ had been well briefed by the EISAI team. The final hour before the show started involved us giving the on-stage team a technical briefing who could, in turn, speak to each of the facilitators in the remote locations to make absolutely certain they were all on the same page.
Zoom is particularly good at echo cancellation and noise reduction. Although there was likely some audio spill, which is where the microphones pick up some of the sound coming from the PA loudspeakers, which can lead to horrible feedback squeals, Zoom deals with that and all of the locations could communicate freely with the presenters on stage in London. It was just like being on one big conference call, and so much slicker than those 1980s/90s Telethons!!
The event was a resounding success and the feedback was hugely positive. Being able to run an event where remote audiences can learn and participate without having to spend time and money travelling is incredibly efficient, benefitting all involved, and it saves a few carbon footprints too.
Moorhen Media has an experienced and reliable team who can deliver such events, and much more besides. If you’d like to hear more and have us help with your event, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!