As we can all agree by now, the future of meetings – at least for the near-term – is hybrid. We are already seeing some meetings begin to take place in person, but those are often smaller versions of the planned event, and often include a virtual component.
As we’ve talked with our meeting planner and convention center partners, we realized there’s a real need for physical spaces that have all the necessary equipment, provide enough space for presenters and the tech team to socially distance, offer options for a variety of production levels – from breakouts to general sessions – and be wired with the kinds of bandwidth needed to execute a virtual event.
Having identified that need, we partnered with the Baltimore Convention Center (BCC) to design and build a virtual studio that is capable of hosting in-person presenters, panels, and virtual participants. With turn-key, television quality broadcast tools for graphics, video, and lighting, the studio provides a physical space to deliver successful virtual and hybrid presentations.
IAEE CEM Week
The first event in the new studio was IAEE’s CEM week. For the IAEE CEM program, Projection and the Center team worked closely with its services partners Centerplate, Edlen Electric, and M.C. Dean, Inc. to record presentations and produce live programming that was broadcast during the weeklong virtual meeting.
From the virtual studio, students were provided with videos, a drone tour of the city, and an inside peek at how the BCC is operating.
As the meeting industry considers what the resumption of live meetings and events will look like, the BCC studio demonstrated the capabilities that will be necessary to seamlessly support presentation content that originates from the venue during an event and reaches an external, virtual meeting audience.
Want to know more about our work with the BCC? Visit our locations page.