ZOOM Events
If there’s anyone who doesn’t know this interface, they were probably on a magical beach in Zanzibar over the last year… A ZOOM event is a tool for online mass meetings, with a wide range of users. Educators, board meetings, companies and organizations, everyone uses the ZOOM company interface which has gained incredible momentum in the past year. The main goal is to maintain contact with customers, employees, and suppliers. How do you do it? Connect a camera, send a link to all participants, and start broadcasting.
Advantages:
- Free interface for up to 100 users and 40 minutes per meeting
- Simple, intuitive, and installed on almost every computer
- Ability to share screen with participants
- Can control the speaker’s background
Disadvantages:
- Limited in number of participants and time (in the free format)
- Unable to split screen between speaker and presentation
- Sound issues when sharing videos and presentations
- The backgrounds are nice but don’t work smoothly and are less suitable for a professional audience
Bottom line:
ZOOM in its free format is a good platform, requires relatively narrow bandwidth for users, and provides an adequate solution for beginners. We should note that there are parallel systems like Webex or Microsoft Teams, which have many advantages over Zoom, but that’s for another review.
Professional ZOOM Event
So after a few Zoom experiences, we’ve understood that it’s not easy to keep viewers with us for a long time. It’s a problem for all of us. We live in a fast-paced world where frames on TV change every 8-12 seconds and clips on MTV every 4 seconds or less. Therefore, sitting in front of a screen for an hour or more, facing a single frame, is not an easy task. Additionally, not everyone was born to “cross the screen” – there are great speakers who stand amazingly in front of an audience, but ZOOM challenges them and they don’t get the desired result compared to their face-to-face meetings. To try and bridge this gap, we need to broadcast the experience in a way that’s more similar to a TV show.
A professional ZOOM broadcast is divided into two parts. There are the viewers at home/work and there’s the broadcast team with the lecturers and speakers. Such an event is based on the ZOOM platform but pulls the broadcast into a routing mixer similar to a TV studio. The mixer contains presentations, transparent logos, live broadcasts, speaker sound, prepared recordings, and more. A professional is in charge of this set, orchestrating all these tools and ensuring they are combined according to a clear lineup, in a professional and precise manner. The viewers, on their end, connect to Zoom in a completely normal way, which is a huge advantage.
The broadcast team is equipped with two or more professional cameras connected to the routing mixer. The speaker is connected to a dedicated microphone, and the sound quality is smooth and clear. The use of two cameras makes the broadcast more energetic and allows filming the speaker or panel from two different angles. It’s also easy to switch between a presentation and the speaker’s frame, and it’s even possible to combine a speaker in part of the screen alongside the presentation. In some systems, it’s possible to designate some of the people sitting at home as speakers and present them on the split screen as a professional panel.
Using such a system, of course, allows sharing video and presentations smoothly without sound problems or interruptions that occur when working with the simple ZOOM system.
This experience can be further upgraded by printed branding in the background of the speakers or using a green screen on which we can project any fixed or dynamic background, customized for you. A branded background serves to convey messages and strengthen the brand, and provides a much more professional look than backgrounds in ZOOM.
What else?
You can share with up to 1000 viewers without time limit! Most importantly, all materials are recorded and delivered to you at the end of the event, so you can continue using them on social networks and increase exposure even after the event itself.
It’s recommended to upgrade the speakers’ lighting and add a screen in front of them with the audience connecting via ZOOM so they can both experience the viewers and interact with them. Speakers will be able to see reactions and respond to questions.
For organizations wishing to share the broadcast live on their Facebook page, this can be done using bonding technology which creates a stable network without needing fiber optic support, and the result is super high quality.
Bottom line:
Professional broadcasting is a significant upgrade to regular Zoom broadcasting, with excellent control over transition and presentation broadcasting, making it easier to keep the audience engaged for longer. You can film from any location you choose, from a cool location or from company offices, and as a brand, you look professional with an excellent cost-benefit ratio!
Hybrid Events Taking the best from all worlds
A hybrid event is a professional ZOOM event that combines a limited or wide audience (according to guidelines). Despite the many qualities of professional Zoom broadcasting, we aim to address the need for direct interaction that we all miss through a hybrid event. Companies and organizations that approached us spoke about the difficulty of keeping the audience engaged for a long time and also about the longing for physical meetings. The desire to talk to people, see them smiling, learn something together, and chat over a cup of coffee and cake.
The hybrid format has an additional advantage for lecturers and speakers – they’re back to flourishing. The excitement of people who love to stand on stage is palpable, and it affects the energy of the entire broadcast. In the end, remote viewers feel this change and manage to stay longer in front of the screen.
Of course, a hybrid event is an opportunity to host and pamper guests with good food and pleasant music, and to create an atmosphere that aligns with brand values. In terms of food and beverages, catering companies have made adjustments for the Corona period and serve individual packages and sandwiches prepared in sterile conditions.
Bottom line:
A hybrid event is an excellent way to enjoy both worlds. On one hand, it brings energy and interest to the broadcast combined with direct meetings with customers. On the other hand, it allows spreading the message, content, and messages to an audience that can’t physically attend due to Corona regulations. Here too, you can set up the broadcast point anywhere you choose!
Broadcasting from a TV Studio
Another category is using TV studios. There are many options in the market, but conceptually, the product is quite similar. This involves a professional filming set (not green screen) available to you with furniture, rear LED screens on which we can broadcast the graphic envelope designed for your event. There’s an option to broadcast the Zoom viewers in the background, or varying materials according to the client’s decision. The studio will have at least 3 cameras, of which 2 are static and one dynamic camera. The camera director will route transitions between cameras according to what’s happening on stage, and the viewer will get a dynamic and professional television viewing experience. Of course, the content must be tight, speakers need to be practiced, and there must be a dress rehearsal before the broadcast. Also, it’s important to choose a host who knows how to hold the screen and manage participants in a way that creates interest for viewers.
Within this category, there’s also a virtual studio platform, which is essentially an advanced version of green screen. It looks professional and the costs are much more accessible, but the resulting output is not similar to a television event.
Professional online events are a full-fledged production. They require careful planning and correct, precise management of all factors. In this article, we’ve presented a wide range of options for online events, with a broad spectrum of solutions at different budgets. You’re invited to contact us, and we’ll be happy to assist!
