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Ctrl + Alt + Event
Ctrl+Alt+Event: Navigating the Future of Events with Practical Insights, and Real Solutions
We're not just talking tech; we're showcasing practical examples and delivering real solutions for the events industry.
Join us live, each week on Tuesdays at 3PM GMT on LinkedIn. Get ready for predictions backed by real-world scenarios, live Q&A solving your challenges, and a visual treat of data insights.
Ctrl + Alt + Event
Hybrid Harmony: Blending AV Tech for Mixed-Format Events (with Brian Monahan)
If you want a better event experience for your attendees in 2024, you can’t get away with only in-person events.
Why?
Without the right mix of formats, you won’t be able to:
❌ Meet the new expectations of your attendees
❌ Collect more actionable data points
❌ Improve your cost efficiency
❌ Become more sustainable
❌ Reach a wider audience
❌ Have more flexibility
❌ Be more inclusive
Once you nail your event formats, there comes the crucial piece of the puzzle:
Production.
You need to have the right AV partners and internal knowledge to properly execute those formats.
That’s why Bogdan Maran and I invited Brian Monahan, the expert on AV technology and its application across multiple event formats.
In this episode, Brian is sharing his insights on:
💡 The best practices for mastering your Live Events
💡 Engagement techniques for your Virtual Events
💡 Actionable Case Studies on Hybrid events
💡 Future-proofing your events with AV
💡 And more
Sit back and relax as we're about to embark on a journey to Hybrid Harmony!
Follow Brian Monahan here
🗓️ Weekly Rendezvous: Mark your calendar! "Ctrl+Alt+Event" will be live on LinkedIn every Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT to answer all your burning questions.
🔄 Host Rotation: Bogdan and Merijn will alternate hosting the live event each week, so make sure to follow them both to receive notifications.
🔗 Connect with Us: Bogdan Maran, Merijn van Buuren
👥 Get more involved: reserve your spot here
🎙️ Become a guest on our show: apply here
It's not just a podcast; it's a tech-forward experience you won't want to miss!
See you next Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT! 🎉✨
Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of control alt event. Welcome, yeah, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. This is a controlled event in episode six already, which is fascinating. We're live. Today We'll have a special guest, but before that, today we'll be talking briefly, as briefly as possible. We try to stick to the half an hour, but usually go a little bit off board depending on the topic. Today we'll be talking about the evolution of AV technology across different event formats, specifically live, virtual and hybrid At least those are the three ones that we know. And, as usual, today I'm joined by my lovely colleague Morain, who has been working on both sides of the blade, both with a few hundred event organizers and a few thousand event platforms, and he's the man if you want to talk to about integrations and anything about event tech. And I'll just pass the mic to him so he can do the intros and I can move things around and blur everything and ruin everything for the first 30 seconds.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for that kind introduction, Bogdan. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you all for joining. I see a lot of you here that frequently come back, so that's really good to see that. Please let us know where you're joining in from. And a small reminder we are live, so make sure to ask all your questions. We have an amazing guest for you that can also answer those questions, so don't wait for all the way to the end to ask all the questions. Just drop them in the chat. We'll put them on the screen and we'll make sure they get answered.
Speaker 2:I'm here together with Bogdan, our famous data storyteller. He has a track record of crafting bespoke platforms, captivating data visualizations and seamlessly integrating merit systems. He is the driving force behind the visual hive. You may have heard of it, an AI marketing engine dated for marketers and event professionals, and today we actually have another guest. It is no one less than Brian Monan.
Speaker 2:Brian is a seasoned event industry professional with over 20 years of experience and a key focus on producing engaging life, hybrid and virtual events. Currently the vice president of sales and business development at Prestige AV and creative services, Brian has significantly contributed to the company's success by securing major contracts and navigating the challenging transition during the whole P word situation Towards the innovative virtual and hybrid event solutions. Beyond his corporate achievement, Brian is deeply committed to personal and professional development. He extends his passion for growth and learning as a facilitator for the PCMA event leadership Institute you probably have heard of that one as well where he shares his expertise in technical meetings and event production. Brian, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. We're so glad to have you here, and also with this topic hybrid harmony I think it's definitely in your wheelhouse, so welcome.
Speaker 3:Thanks Morijn, Thanks Bogman, Super excited to be here, Honored to join you both. I look up to both of you in the industry and I do have to come clean. It's actually 30 years in the industry now. I'm sorry. I guess I need to update my bio. I've been trying to hang on to that 20 year mark but I think I'm over the hump now. So I know we're going to be talking about the history of AV and I thought you guys might need to schedule more than a half hour based on that tenure. So I don't know what you were thinking.
Speaker 1:We always schedule a little bit over half an hour and I did forget and I did got panicked a little bit and excited and forget to say that Ryan is the founder of Eventmender and I've been married for 10 years, so it's always my fault and I do tend to make mistakes, not to use other words from that perspective. But yeah, you don't look a day over 25.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, Thank you yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:I do have that under 25 filter on my cameras.
Speaker 2:I think many people would like to have that filter as well, so if you could, I just need to scrunch squash my video and lose 10 pounds.
Speaker 2:Hi, chris. Good to see you joining in from New Jersey all the way all across the world. It's so good. Where everyone else joining in from Let us know in the comments and without further ado, let's jump into the first segment, the evolution of AV and event formats. You mentioned already a bit in terms of the fast amount of experience you have. Brian, can you give us a little bit of a historical overview, not diving in too deep, but share us all your knowledge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how far do you want me to go back? Do you want me to go back Overhead projectors or film?
Speaker 1:So day one, 30 years ago.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I mean, I think, since we're talking hybrid and virtual events, I think it's important to kind of like hit the distinction of where I was at when I started in the industry, and prior to me would have been like remote type and scenarios Like there wasn't really a great option for doing any kind of hybrid or virtual event, most likely 50s. Maybe somebody was filming it and sending the canister to another city to be watched in the corporate offices and maybe they're on a phone line together. So yeah, that's kind of like I was catching the tail end of that. And then I think we went to a little peer to peer, you know that's. You know broadcast satellites. We were hitting the satellite dishes and dropping those satellite trucks outside of ballrooms and that was a viable solution. It was closer to real time.
Speaker 3:And then I think we hit that next phase which was, you know, we were starting to get into the digital world. We were hitting the ISDN lines using our Polycom units and, you know, still a closed kind of scenario. You know you had to be in the network, you had to be using all the right codecs and all the right protocols. They're very, very specific. And then we, you know, we get to the pandemic and you know, great news is we were actually ready for it. We just nobody was doing it. You know, we had all this technology with webcams. Go to meeting teams was coming on board. Zoom was rocking, but nobody was willing to slow down and actually master the technology until we absolutely got stuck in our houses for a year and a half or whatever that was. So it was always the dream we had. I just wish we could have done it under different terms.
Speaker 1:We definitely benefited from a bit of a learning curve, especially the non-geeky persons who weren't building OBS on three different laptops and five different cables, trying to make everything work on a budget at some point with two days notice preferably.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I didn't barely knew what OBS. To be quite honest, even being in the industry since I'm more on, you know, growing up on the AV side of things we were very hardware-based, you know. So our team was always like OBS, not a chance. You know, give me that E2 switcher. You know I need a $180,000 switcher to be able to do what OBS does.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not going to do it. It does make sense from a stress-free situation, to be honest. So I do remember. I don't have 30 years in events, although I do have some great.
Speaker 3:Are you trolling me now, Bogdan? Are you trolling me?
Speaker 1:No, I was just trying to remember how much fun I had about 25 years ago. 23 years ago when I got in the first time, when I got into a TV transmission van so we can do some kind of political thing that because the technical guy who didn't didn't turn up for the event was a cold and I was the only one who was cheeky enough say I know how to do. That don't really was nine, did make some mistakes, but that was my first experience technically speaking.
Speaker 3:I mean they started right on the right at the top. You know, jump in with the broadcast.
Speaker 1:But it was in terms of technological investments, and we both have enough history. I've started shooting on film and started working on various better cameras, with cassettes and Running to trains when you were doing a flood or because I was coming from the journalistic part of you, but still an event, technically speaking it something happened, something we're trying to stream. How do you see the investment and what from your perspective? What did that enable you to do? Where? Where did you find the value added from the technology perspective?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think you know one of the things I like about the industry is you know, hey, we've been. The technology's been evolving over the past 30 years. You know, just consistently. You know the Moore's law of doubling memory and I think that's carried over into, you know, video and internet and everything like that. So everything's been kind of on a double basis for the best 2025 years, but I think in the past five or six it slowed down a touch.
Speaker 3:The technology. You know, like in my space, like a 5000 lumen projector I don't need a 10,000 lumen projector in a breakout room a 5000 lumen projector is going to be good in five years. It's going to be good in 10 years, whereas when I started in the industry, we were using 800 lumen projectors, and so you know. So when the 1200 lumen came out, you had to buy the 1200 lumen, and when the 15 and the 2000, and so I think that's the same with All the technologies we have. There's a lot of.
Speaker 3:You know I'm operating today on a Mac M1. Mac book air 2020 model, and it destroys a couple PCs I have at the office that are brand new. You know it's. You know this. This, this computer is going to be good for another four or five years with no issues, and in fact it's better than some of Some of the newer versions. So I think that, having kind of like we're reaching a plateau not that things aren't growing, but with a plateau I think other people can catch up. The the late adopters can now join in, and so they're going to go ahead and start testing things out. They're going to try things out, they're going to do their own shows, like we're doing right here. We're you know it's, it's the barrier to entry is low now, and so that means everybody's doing it. I think that allows us to even take it up a notch, to go even higher, and so that's what I'm excited about.
Speaker 2:In terms of like.
Speaker 3:We mentioned a lot of terms here yeah, and stop me at any point, for oh god no, please, I really.
Speaker 2:We love it and our audience probably loves it too. But sometimes there are some gaps, and I think, especially with that lower boundary to enter the market and to get started with it, it becomes more and more important to kind of also know the foundation in terms of the terms that you need. So you cannot just understand what you need, but also, when you're working with, for instance, an AV provider, you can communicate exactly what it is that that you need. And one of the things we put on the list is kind of do you have a breakdown of the essential AV components that for live events in this case, such as a sound system, lighting, video projection what, what are kind of for you, what are the most essential AV components that everyone who's listening today should know about? Kind of? Probably not too much in that, but at least they know what, what they should have on their events, what, what they should have on their events no, and I'm gonna break it down super simple.
Speaker 3:Actually, in the course I always try to break AV down into three categories and I call it inputs, switching or combining, and then outputs or destinations, and so I always try to just tell people get your mindset around these Three main areas. So you know essentially, you know you're in a room, you're gonna need input, that's you, know that's you, you're the person, you're the entertainment. You're gonna have to be loud, you have to hear you, depending on the size of your one of the microphone, generally wireless. I don't get any orders for wired logs anymore. Thank god we we said we didn't own any. What are the clients use them anymore? We thought that was kind of crazy to put a lot of on and then be chained to a to a cable. But but no, you're gonna need your microphones. You're gonna need your audio input devices. You know back in the day that think CD player. But now it's gonna be a laptop playing music back. You're gonna be playing Illegally your Spotify list, most likely you're gonna be, you know, breaking some laws there. Then you're gonna have other input devices, your, your computers, which are playing back different audio. You know you're gonna have videos in your PowerPoint. Most likely you're gonna use a lot of people have heard the term playback pro. That's a video playback device in a live event space and so people will be playing back that video. So a big miss, typically, as they forget that those you know it's PowerPoint and it's video based. They forget they need the audio. So you're gonna need audio coming out of that and then you're gonna send it to a mixer, okay, and so that mixer is gonna take in all those inputs, allow you to match them up, get them all matched up so that and then Push that back out to your speakers. Okay, and in a live space it's pretty simple. You know you're gonna have a couple speakers in the room, most likely for a small meeting, but we learned as we moved into the virtual space you're gonna want to hire and mixer.
Speaker 3:In today's world, and I think that's kind of like where we talk about how you, where you move into that space on the audio front is you need a mixer that's got different outputs. You want to be able to mix what's going to the stream at a different level than what you're sending to the room and possibly to the, to the record deck, so it's gotten a little more complicated. On the video front, your inputs are gonna be your cameras. I already talked about laptops, those live on the audio and video side of things, your mic, not microphones. But PTZ cameras are really big in the virtual space right now and I'll talk about that in some tips later on, how those help events.
Speaker 3:What else I miss on video? You know you got your playback pro, your video devices, any kind of video playback device, and then you're gonna go into a switcher at the or a scalar, and it's a little bit different. In the mixer You're gonna be picking like I want this input to go to screen, I want that input to go to screen. Today's modern world. You actually might be merging those inputs like we are here.
Speaker 3:We got three camera up on the screen today and then you're gonna go to a destination, the final leg of the of the equation here, which is, you know, in the room it's to a screen, it's a large screens in a room, but you got your downstage monitors. You want to switcher that can handle that, and now you're gonna be sending out some independent feed, most likely to an encoder To send out to a stream somewhere on the web or in inject into some kind of webcast. Two other things real quick and I'm not gonna go into much detail on them. But you need. On V mix, robert, absolutely, and I mentioned you know I work for an audiovisual company and the owner of our company really struggled when V mix solved our hundred thousand dollars switcher problems, you know. You know it's kind of like a balance there.
Speaker 1:It's. It's. It's a long list, but it's it's a long list that serves goals. Because you went through the idea of, yes, we need this equipment, because we need to go to, we need to have screens for speakers, we need to know where they are. And those screens for speakers might have the slides and the timer. They don't need to see themselves or they might just need to hear themselves, depending on where you are. But in the same time, you want to send something out to your digital platform or whatever that is and it's about. And how do you, how do you approach that conversation? Because, from my perspective, is very much a goal based solution in terms of what do you want to achieve? Communicate that in a correct way. And then somebody like yourself comes in and says I know all these words. I don't have to teach you for six months how to learn all these words, but I know how to do it correctly.
Speaker 3:No, I think you hit on something, and I struggle even when we do. The title of this session today is hybrid harmony. The word hybrid is just makes. I don't disdain the word, but the word hybrid has got so many meanings, and so when people say, well, define hybrid and I like to flip the script on that, nice, define your event, define what you're trying to achieve. As you said, bogdan, that is the most important thing. The terminology it's great if you can match it up, but I still recommend you ask a lot of questions. A lot of people don't know the difference between a live stream, a webcast, web conference, webinar, and so I think, although we have settled into some terminology in the industry, I still think we're on the front lines and, layman's terms, a lot of people think a live stream is the same as a webcast.
Speaker 1:So what's the difference between a live stream and a webcast? From your perspective at least.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, and actually I probably picked a poor choice of words. I could see where a live stream and a webcast may be similar, but I would say a web conference versus a live stream. I think live stream and webcast could be very similar, but a web, generally, a live stream, is going to be mostly one way. In terms of content. You may get a little kickback from like a chat type experience, but for the most part, the video, the audio is all going one way and you're not going to be talking to any of the audience.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I absolutely love the example because it's so close but it's so far away, because we were talking about. We're talking about the idea of how do you look at AV from, like an audience engagement strategy, and if somebody comes and says I'm going to do live stream, I automatically going to presume, okay, that's the one way that you've just said. It might have like a slight type of technology that will come on top of that to help you engage a little bit with the people that are not outside, Like we have now with LinkedIn, where we put these kind of questions that we have and comments on the screen. So it's more towards it's definitely not a live stream because we're not a football match. So that's where I see the difference in terms of the live stream and the webcast.
Speaker 1:As the best example, If I watch a Premier League or an NBA match, which are kind of I don't really watch Premier League anymore, but at least NBA matches I don't expect to have any connection to the players or anybody to hear me when I scream at the TV, Because that's the engagement that's a lot of people isn't understanding. Pandemic is regardless how hard you're going to scream at the TV If you haven't prepared for your audience to get engaged. Nobody's going to hear them.
Speaker 3:End of story. No, there obviously is a secondary channel in sports which is going out to Twitter and seeing how mad everybody is about that foul or whatever. So that's my favorite thing to do is to go out to Twitter and find out how mad everybody is at the same topic.
Speaker 1:So that's the second screen experience that we can talk about as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that terminology as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and Robert actually pretty much asked this question like question about hybrid producing to in person and online at the same time seems to be very difficult. How do you ensure that online video audience feels included in a hybrid event and what are the key benefits of hybrid? Brian, I think you're going to toss me this one, the question of the decade right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the holy grail. Yeah, I mean, that's the question of the decade.
Speaker 3:Yes, timer starts now. So, yeah, I mean, I think, hybrid. I think the biggest mistake people make in hybrid is not really getting clear that all the audience are different and unique and you have to set up your structure so that you're addressing each scenario in its very unique state. So what you're sending out to the local screens is not adequate for what you're sending out to the broadcast or to the stream, what your MC in the room may not be the right MC for. You may need to have a layered event, so you may treat the hybrid or the remote audience in a much different manner. You may have their own MC. You may have special features for them that are only for that, designed only for that space.
Speaker 3:You know, one of my favorite things that I see conferences do is okay, you got a keynote speaker and they go to the main stage Instead of coming off to the green room and moving on. I see a lot of them coming off and getting interviewed on the web broadcast and often fielding questions from the hybrid audience. Now the hybrid audience is actually getting a better experience. They're getting one-to-one conversation with that keynote speaker in another environment, and so I think that's one of the keys to this is that you have to really get clear about each environment and give them what they need in that environment, and so not to just think it's one solution across the entire mess per se.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it's very fascinating because we've tried in the event industry a lot, especially during the stage home period, when we were naughty, without naming the names, it tried to copy past the experience from a live event to a live stream and we well, lots of the conversations were managing expectations from an organizer says standpoint, because you can't mimic that.
Speaker 1:First of all, you cannot solve every interaction problems for AV because we are on the subject specifically so but in the same time, if you think of, as you said, from a different perspective, they have to have a different experience depending where they are and how they are. It can be enhanced, but it can be enhanced on both ways, because if you're on site, you don't, you don't get the whole interaction, you don't get the coffee afterwards, you don't get the handshake, you don't have the work there, whereas online I've got two screens now and I can watch this show and I can Google this, I can write an email, I can Google brand, make sure that I know him, I connected with me like comment on post, and there is a completely different conversation there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean one thing that I've seen it. You know people put let's put a camera out in the hall and let them watch everybody network. Yeah, I'm very interested in that remote talk about phone.
Speaker 2:See what you're missing out on, and I think hopefully we've evolved since.
Speaker 2:I really hope so, yes they are very true and I think what you say, like every audience is different and you need to tailor an experience where each audience finds themselves valued and have a tailored experience for them. But there are obviously also tools that Can give some overlap, like Kristen mentioned, like tools like slide out that can have both audiences engage, which makes them feel part of a bigger community, rather than just their hybrid or online or in person experience. I think that's also a good addition. So thank you, kristen, for mentioning no.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, I was thinking.
Speaker 3:You know that's one of the mistakes I see.
Speaker 3:Actually, I remember early on in one of an early event I did during the pandemic was like the first time we got together as a group and everybody's in masks in the In the ballroom, you know, six feet away, and we're zooming out and I realized everybody in the room is not going to be on the same chat and so how do you, how do you deal with that?
Speaker 3:And that's why you have to have a, a separate chat device, often from the actual environment you're working in. Unless you know obviously things have evolved significantly since then that Many platforms you can chat whether you're in the stream or not. And you know, I was reluctant to actually even say I was like there's no way I'm sharing the link to anybody in the room and having a bunch of people opening their zooms In my meeting. Do not share that, that code with anybody because they are not getting in this meeting. But yeah, I think you know how do you find the right tools that match both audiences and you should have a little bit of that, but don't rely on it being the only solution for the entire event.
Speaker 2:And, like last time, we spoke a bit about small details. Another small but very important detail that we quickly encountered when scheduling this particular event is also taking to account where those audiences are, especially if you have a hybrid event. You have an in person event maybe Taking place in America or in Europe, but you also have virtual audiences joining from a different continent, and it just so happens that not all continents change summertime at the same time. It's something to take into account as well.
Speaker 3:No, it was a discussion we had to have for our particular broadcast. The US just moved our time on Sunday, sunday morning and but the great news is, you being the professional that you are, confirmed with me that we are on the same schedule so and I thought we have to talk about this today because it goes on every day in the space.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It is such a small detail that can make such a big difference if you're an hour off for those three weeks. We're switching back the 31st of March. We're in Europe. We're a little bit behind, but for everyone joining in, just know that now there's an hour extra difference. Actually it's a bit shorter at the moment but we'll be catching up with you shortly for those joining from the US From the US, I think. Well, we kind of went through a lot of different elements in terms of, especially, how to optimize the hybrid event game with both the tools, with both strategies, in terms of like. Let's go to the engagement techniques. I thought that was a good one. What do you see as the essential role in terms of using a V technology to enhance the engagement in in virtual settings, in in hybrid settings? What do you think is the key element that a V brings that event professionals should really take in and take home with this session today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think when you get in, the audio video thing is, you know, the closer you can get to a real time experience for somebody is important, and so you know, we all get to asynchronous network on a regular basis through our emails and through our direct messages on social media platforms, but I think the idea of an event as being synchronous is still very attractive. Yes, we can do some asynchronous environments, and they do have their place, but I think when you can bring people together and have them communicate directly with each other, whether it be on camera, whether it be even a chat experience Our goal is to get that direct communication with another human, because if you look at the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we need to be seen by other humans and that's what events do, is we bring that human experience to the table. And so the better your camera, the better your audio feed, the better your internet all of those things make it make a difference.
Speaker 1:You hit the nail on the head there, because it's one of my favorite things is. So I come from slightly different perspective and I look at any content visual content, be it video, be it photo, be anything as a behavioral trigger, and we have this discrepancy that you either have somebody that goes, ok, I'll do this, 10,000 events to take it on zoom, which is not the case, because it triggers a different behavior versus I need a Netflix production for my workshop, which is bullshit, you don't. You need to have something correct, but you need to have it correct, because if the sound is bad or my internet fails and you go, then the experience is bad. If it's correct and again going to like the hybrid element, we don't have any drama, sex, nudity or anything on the stage. We are not that fix. We have people speaking, so it has to be correct. It doesn't have to be. Don't have to have flying horses, dragons or anything coming out of the stage, but if it's bad, you're going to have a bad experience and you're going to feel it instant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know you bring up a good point.
Speaker 3:I think you know, hey, I brought up technology and cameras and things like that. But I think a more important piece of the equation for AV and technical People is to start to forecast all of the different scenarios. What kind of challenge are am I going to have when I go to a corporate office and I set up a remote studio with the corporate big wig to broadcast out? Have I checked in with their IT department and can my particular, if I'm using restream, maybe they got that blocked on their network. Have I gone and figured that out in advance? Have I seen that before I'm broadcasting to a particular remote city factory, do they have enough bandwidth in that particular factory to receive that feed? And so I think you know what the AV role is that we are trying to troubleshoot all of the different scenarios of where people are and how they need to get in contact with the other direction and receive the information and make sure that we thought out all of those solutions before we bring people together.
Speaker 2:And so I think that's the more important role of the AV in in this space, 100% agree with you and I think you you mentioned it actually before we started like the best approach is to say like technology will fill at some point, we don't know what, so have a contingency plan in place To make sure that, no matter what happens, you have covered your base and you know, you can say with 99% certainty that you covered every single element. And an important part of that is also choosing the right companies to work with, and one of the Kind of last segments, because we are flying to time, we're already yeah you got Boggins like who is this guy anyway?
Speaker 2:We love it. The last segment was kind of big, figuring out or choosing the right AV solutions, and you know how to assess them, how to food, future proof your event. Do you need to go in house or external? There are quite a few things to consider. What would you give as a tip to the audience listening right now in terms of Choosing the right AV solution for their event to make sure they cover all their bases, besides obviously going for prestige AV in this case? But Thank, you.
Speaker 3:We accept your In general.
Speaker 2:I make that assessment now.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think you know, if I were to start anywhere, I would say that the key to success in any part of the event industry is having trusted partners. You have to build relationships for the long haul. You have to get to know each other. You understand the limits of your vendors or your partners. You have to understand the limits of your internal organizations and so and and who you're working with needs, understand your limitations. So I think it starts with the human element. Once again, you know it's building strong relationships, foundations, ensuring that your partners are have the technology you need. And then I think the next phase is testing. You know you have. You don't want to start with a new platform and never have tested it. I think that's one of the things we saw during the pandemic is what we were forced to. You know we had to go and take this platform we've never used before. I recommend things like if you're thinking about moving to a new platform for your annual meeting, but you have a small regional spring meeting, you might want to host it on that platform. Work out the bugs. You're going to have some issues, like I didn't. I didn't foresee this challenge, but now that you've done it on a smaller environment. You can. You can solve those bugs before you bring more people together. And then the other thing is I think it's important to just consider your audience. You know, what are they used to.
Speaker 3:I used to laugh at this little scenario, which is I had a client come to me and they're like I want to do a tweet, while Brian, I'm like, ok, great, yeah, if you used a software before. They're like, no, I go, well, here's what I would suggest. I would use this particular software. And then I go and what's your Twitter account? We don't have a Twitter account. And I'm like we don't have a Twitter account. And I'm like and it was like some old, stodgy association I can't even remember who it was but I'm like well, if you don't have a Twitter account and your members don't have Twitter accounts, you probably don't need a tweet wall. You might want to go a different route.
Speaker 3:So I think you got to get clear about who your members are, what their technologies are. And that leads me to the next thing, because I think you have to train your attendees. You have to train them in the technologies you want to use. So, similar to what I just said on your spring meeting, you might use the software. If you're going to do a webinar, you might bring them into the software. You have lots of reasons to have them use the different technologies you're using. So when you are on the ultimate high-stakes stage of your annual meeting, that you're not doing it for the first time and they're not doing it for the first time, and so I think it's all about just moving everybody forward to a higher level, and those would be my tips. You know, big picture is just building that relationship and improving everybody's skills along the way.
Speaker 1:Oh no, no, I can go back and say that I probably I don't know if I can beat you talking, but I'll definitely have a good chance in terms of the amount of ranting I can do on this one.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, definitely, let's go for it.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely One of my. I want to ask you a question because I think we're trying to educate as much as possible and we're trying to educate ourselves as well, and I've learned a lot from you and one of my pit-hates is the vague terminology that people use when they don't know what you're talking about. And as much as you work everybody says I work in events what do you do? Do you do the AV? And I'll go get back to why AV is wrong what do you do Weddings? Do you do broadcast? Do you do data? What do you do?
Speaker 1:Av, again, is a relatively general term and I'm trying to form a question in my head. As in, av is not the magical one for everything, but people think that when they go to AV, they would expect anything from building the stage to setting up the lights, to designing the stage, to doing the live stream, to understanding everything and, on top of that, to be a very experienced media person and understand the engagement off-site, on site, and maybe the cameraman can be the MEC as well. How do you work with various partners to enhance the specialization that you have within the AV?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think you can blame some AV companies, including us at times, for that. There was pre-pandemic this period where everybody was kind of like trying to take everything under their wing to be competitive. So it's like, yeah, I can do that, I can do that. Yes, I can do that. I think the pandemic exposed oh, by the way, I'm not allowed to use those words, right, it took me the whole time to catch that I'm not allowed to use those words anymore. But no, I think we need to. I'm sorry I lost my point there. No worries, and we're talking about the partners.
Speaker 1:And my idea came because you said about the partnership that you have with the end stakeholder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. Well, if you go to the client side of things, the end client, I think it's your duty to get clear about the vendors you're bringing in, not just assume that AV means I'm also video production, I'm also stage design, I'm also graphic design Prestige is a lot of those things, by the way. Toss that out there. But you want to find out what somebody's good at and make sure that you contract them in their sweet spot and that may mean bringing in. A lot of times we are working. We have a great lighting division, but we do a lot of events where somebody brings in another lighting company and we're fine with that. If that company can provide a better outcome in that space, that's great. We do a lot of events where somebody is creating all the graphics, creating all the video and media assets, they're designing the script. If that is their expertise and they understand the client better in that space, I think you should do that. But you as a client have to be a strong understanding of all the different parties and make sure that you can bring them together in a way that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I do see a lot of. I've seen some pretty good growth in the agency space in the past couple of years, I think agencies have found a new space in the sense that they've been able to be a nice executive producer of an event and say I know Prestige is really good in the equipment space and the space. I know this lighting company, I know this video production company that can bring all these assets together. So I think the key is that you get clear about all the different partners and make sure that they can actually deliver at the level you need them to. I'll be honest we don't do platforms. I mean I would prefer somebody to bring the platform with them. We're great at patching into a hybrid platform. I can get the content in and out. I can give you a strong, solid signals everywhere, but I'm not going to design platforms anymore. We've decided that's not our space.
Speaker 1:No, it's just fair enough. That was the instinct at some point and it's still kind of the instinct when you're talking about especially like the big players, like Sievent, that they're all in one concept of you can't be all in one because there are so many elements. When you're talking about a hybrid event, sievent cannot build stages. Let's put it like that they might be good at something, but they're definitely not good at building stages.
Speaker 3:If you go across the board from that, perspective, yeah, and I think that one of the benefits, I believe, of the labor shortages and things of that nature is that companies don't have the luxury to do what's not in their wheelhouse, and so I've seen a lot of companies pull back services that are not ideal for them. In our space we used to do some installs and do permanent installation in boardrooms small stuff but we just flat out say we don't do that anymore, it's not anything I can support. I want to stay focused on live events. We don't do much social anymore. I do a few weddings within some of the venues we serve, but we're not going to take just random business off the street going weddings. And so how do you get clear about your services and I think that's important too for all those service providers out there is.
Speaker 2:It is good to have a niche and be focused on that and be the expert at it Absolutely, and I think with that it's also a kind of side note for everyone who's talking, to anyone who says they can do everything. You can have a red flag, right.
Speaker 1:Challenge that and we can challenge the time as we're talking about red flags. If you do have any questions, please pop them in now because we'll try to. I am trying to wrap up somehow towards the 45 minutes mark, but if you do have any questions and I think you've put the ones that you've already posted I don't see all of them because I'm in London and I have a bad internet. So that's why I work perfectly with Morine, because he has a good internet where he is and you can see the questions.
Speaker 3:Morine's got the virtual hook. He can just get rid of me anytime you guys are finished, so I think we all enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:I see we have still a lot of people that hang in there, so I appreciate you all for making it to the 45 minute mark. At this point, I want to do two things. So, indeed, if you have any questions, pop them in the chat. We will have two minutes and then we have wrapped up. So be quick. But you can also just leave them there, because Brian will have the possibility to go back to the event, read your comment, comment to you individually, maybe connect so we'll bug them and I. So if you have any questions and it takes you longer than those two minutes to type, just drop them anyway or connect with either one of us. We'll be happy to help you out. Brian, I wanted to give you one last question. Oh boy, besides all the invaluable knowledge you've already shared today, what would you like to give those listening as a takeaway from this session? That hammered that down 100%.
Speaker 3:Oh boy, going all the way down, that's a good one. Yeah, I think, if I were to make one point in the industry and I think if you're listening today you're already on the right track which is we no longer have the luxury, as event professionals, to be technical newbies per se. Yeah, it's no longer optional to be average in technology and events. Maybe 20 years ago, it was better to know what wine paired with red meat or fish, but that is no longer the differentiation piece. So if you want to have a long, solid career and events, you're going to want to become a technology expert, and so that's my recommendation to stay in tune with people like Marijn Bogdan. Continue to learn, continue to evolve your skills and support that outcome.
Speaker 2:I think that's a powerful takeaway and we are very much aligned with that statement. And it's good to know that you're not alone. There's a lot of people company, individuals, including ourselves that are more than happy to help you out with that tech, so you can actually focus on organizing the best possible event. I haven't seen any new questions coming in, so I'd say let's quickly wrap it up. Thank you so much for joining us today, brian. It has been a pleasure, not just that we laughed a lot, that we had a good time, but also there was a lot of insights for the industry, for those that are listening, that they can definitely take home and improve their events with. So thank you very much for that. For those of you who would like to get in touch with Brian, you can obviously see him as a speaker here, but you can also go to linkedincom. Slash in slash, brian Monahan, that is M-O-N-A-H, a-h-n. You'll find me.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, yeah, actually I think it's that I'm not going to acknowledge anything right now?
Speaker 2:All right, we'll put it in the chat for you to follow, brian We'll also put his show notes.
Speaker 2:There's a D-Straig in this episode. Yes, if you can figure it out, let us know in the comments. We will actually also put them in the show notes. So if you're listening to the podcast, you'll find them in the description, or if you're watching on YouTube, you can find it there as well. He covers a variety of topics, not just live event tips and AV insights and valuable knowledge, but he's also known as the person to go to when you ever feel the need to write a book, no matter what the topic is. But if you want to get started and get started quick and get that book out there, brian is the one to go to. So make sure you take that mental note as well, because he has a passion for writing and authorship and he is a gem in that. So make sure to also contact him for that, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've gone through a lot of the time has flown by, so we can wrap it up Well. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, kristen for being here, thank you, salima for being here. I think we still have quite a few other people, but for those of you who are watching, thank you so much and we're looking forward to the next one which, before I forget, we have another guest and that is actually going to be Claire Force J. We will dive into the sweet spot, balancing emotion, engagement and technology. So another interesting topic you got to invite me on.
Speaker 3:You got to let me in on that show. I love Claire. She is awesome.
Speaker 1:Claire is absolutely fantastic, so it's undoubtedly Make sure to join us next week.
Speaker 2:Brian, we would love to see you in the comments and yeah, with that, thank you all so much for being here and looking forward to the next one.
Speaker 1:Thank you, see you next week. Thank you, brian, very much Been a pleasure, absolute pleasure, happiness.
