Case Study: BW-i Universities Meet the World by PIRATEx
When the pandemic disrupts the regular meeting of your universities, but not international education, it’s time to adapt. Together with clients BW-i, PIRATEx developed a livestream event concept specifically to bring together BW-i’s community of university stakeholders who could not meet in person due to the pandemic.
The PIRATEx production took place over the course of two days with 3-5 interactive sessions at a time. The production was entirely live with no pre-recorded sessions.
Event Goals
Our client BW-i was looking for an online experience that would help educate their community, empower existing relationships and provide an opportunity for interactive engagement.
Analyzing their needs, a professional, live production with many interaction opportunities was chosen to bring together BW-i’s stakeholders from around the region. As the event was focused on future concepts and internationalization, a production utilizing the latest event technology was designed to engage and excite their audience.
Studio Setting
PIRATEx worked with the client to deliver a clean, professional and efficient studio for the production. BW-i choose an active stage set, including standing tables and background lighting.
The event was streamed on location in Stuttgart’s Im Wizemann, after close consideration of several alternative venues. While there were many promising choices in the city, the location choice was ultimately a technical decision. Im Wizemann’s broadband speed and quality ensured the live event could be streamed effectively.
PIRATEx Online Event Top Tip
When hosting a livestream event, ensure your venue can accommodate your needs. These include:
- Minimum download speeds of 50mpbs per second
- Upload speeds range between 15-20mbps
Many locations and residential venues have a range below these, so check beforehand!
Technical setup by the numbers:
From Concept to Production: Two Months
On Location: 3 days Production Setup, Design and Event hosting.
Tuesday, 4pm to build up all the setting to 9pm
Wednesday 10am to 9pm
Thursday 7am to 1pm
On Set:
- Project Lead
- Audio professional
- Livestream operator
- Tech checks and systems operation
- Videographer and content producer
- 2 cameras
- 1 professional moderator
Event Technologies
- Talque: The main livestream was hosted on Talque. Talque’s clean agenda and livestream chat function kept the event organized and participants engaged.
- Slido: Slido was chosen for audience engagement. During the production, we utilized the live polling and word cloud functions.
- Wonder.me: Wonder was selected to encourage networking and audience interaction. Up to 60 participants at a time utilized Wonder to engage and connect. Wonder’s broadcasting function helped to orient the audience to agenda points during the day.
- Supporting Tools: Zoom and Microsoft Teams
Key Takeaways
When developing your online event concept, location matters, even when you’re online! The choice of using a studio, or a fully remote setting is an important one when it comes to your production. The choice of a studio production was a great fit for this project. The stage set brought a professional look and feel to the event.
The studio also helped when it came to speaker management. Centralizing activities in the studio meant that managing speakers was straightforward when it came to moving to different aspects of the program. These smooth transitions were clear in the final product, which presented a seamless result.
Eager to produce your own event? Download our partner booklet or/and connect with Fred to get started.
Written by:
Felix Josephi
PIRATEx Managing Director
