PSMG annual conference review – turning a challenge into a success
Taking an established annual conference – turned on its head by the pandemic – away from physical keynotes, plenary sessions and break-out rooms was a challenge of gargantuan proportions for the PSMG team. Events manager Milly Sutton explains the path to success.
When setting out to plan the 2021 PSMG Conference, we had a number of challenges and obstacles to tackle, the first being the biggest: How could we recreate another successful conference when operating in a virtual world?
A year earlier, a new virus was spreading through the UK, one that we didn’t fully understand or comprehend. All we knew was that we couldn’t host our event in person so at the eleventh hour, it got postponed. All that time and effort by us and the speakers either on-hold or, potentially, gone in the abyss of Covid-19.
Roll on 12 months, the pandemic is still affecting our daily lives, events are still not face-to-face, and the phrase on many a lip is ‘Zoom fatigue’. So, how were we going to re-create this high profile, high networking, immersive event?
What we did know was that our objectives were consistent – we wanted to retain our high level of guest speakers, engage our time-poor audience and we wanted something fun. We needed a platform that allowed us to keep the mix of plenary and workshop sessions - and allow our amazing supporters to have some kind of branding and exhibition space.
We quickly realised the online video platforms that everyone was using would be pushed to their limits in supporting us, so we searched for something new, something exciting and, of course, something virtual.
Thanks to Dan Reinhold at KPMG, we were introduced to the IDO Virtual team to see online campus they had developed, complete with guests walking around as avatars. Nervous giggles erupted and off we went to the virtual dressing room to create our avatars, a digital version of ourselves with no lockdown weight gain and no re-growth. Win-win!
We instantly warmed to the team at IDO Virtual. There were gasps in realising this was as far from Zoom as we could find. Yet it ticked so many boxes.
IDO introduced us to Virbela. It had the look of an American university campus or Silicon Valley corporate office – large auditoria, small meeting rooms and everything in between. It even had football field, nightclub and lighthouse thrown in.
Using your computer arrow keys, you walked between the spaces or teleported yourself from one area to the next. We could use slides, videos and, of course, enable us to see each other.
The best feature for me turned out to be turning your microphone on and talking as normal. When running one of the training sessions, one of my ex-colleagues could hear me down the [virtual] corridor so came up to me instantly and we started chatting. Our conference chairman Paul Taylor had a similar experience.
The joy of banging into ex-colleagues, previous suppliers, mutual friends in the professional services world could continue at the PSMG conference, even if we couldn’t yet be in person.
So, what is Virbela? Let me hand over to IDO Virtual to hear more…
“We quickly realised the online video platforms that everyone was using would be pushed to their limits in supporting us, so we searched for something new, something exciting and, of course, something virtual.”
No event would be complete without its challenges. We were delighted all our speakers agreed to continue with their involvement but, with everyone having busy diaries, we quickly realised that the Virbela training sessions would not work for us – they were too long and technical and less practical than we wanted.
Luckily the IDO team stepped in to save the day…again. With their help, we mastered a 10-minute training of navigation but more importantly, how to present and engage with the audience.
The next reoccurring problem was strict legal firewalls. None of our audience had used Virbela on their work laptop previously, so we received varying reactions from IT teams and their enthusiasm to download the platform. And, then once in, could you hear or be heard?
This experience reminded me how sophisticated you all are and how much we all thrive when engaged. We had to look at the use of audience polls, solutions to facilitate small working groups, and ways to watch videos and Ted talks.
Virbela wanted us to use their short list of accredited apps to support their system, so we had to find imaginative ways to get around this list and roll out the tools we really wanted.
Our sponsors were given the opportunity to set-up their exhibition stand in the expo hall but getting it small enough for our event was part of the challenge. The room can host up to 6,000 people and 1,000 stalls, yet we only needed 12.
And then when we did get the hall small enough the booths have this amazing feature that at the press of a button, their configuration can change so tables and chairs could be added or removed, videos could be shown and logos dotted everywhere.
But when you pushed those buttons, the dimensions changed and the design teams had to adapt quickly. I was almost missing those days of arriving three hours early at an event to erect pull-up banners and display printed brochures!
Sadly, the expo hall wasn’t right next to the auditorium, so our sponsors didn’t get the usual foot traffic and engagement they normally did. The Passle team though certainly got the prize for Linkedin engagement by showing their avatars dancing at their stand.
So, is this the future of events? To an extent, yes. I see the appeal of lecture style learning for a captive audience, where larger gatherings can be attracted and that brings together a larger, more diverse audience when you remove the time and cost of travel is attractive.
But for high networking events like the PSMG conference, nothing will replace that face-to-face option. A lot of speakers thrive from that instant reaction from the audience, the ease of turning chairs to create breakout tables for workshops, the laughter when seeing familiar faces and sharing a glass of wine, nothing beats it.
I don’t expect large conferences to be back into full swing this year, but I do think 2022 will be the year of the conference. See you all then!