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Paris Peace Forum brings together hundreds of speakers from around the world for an event that looks to solve the pressing issues of our time. It hosts the best and brightest from government, business, NGOs, International organisations, academia, media and much more. Previously a physical event in 2020, it went virtual for the first time.
The challenge was to ensure over 200 high-profile speakers not only connected to the event platform, but that they looked and sounded great when they did so.
It was critical for the event organisers to retain the same quality set in previous years. This time, however, under the additional pressure of all speakers joining remotely, each demanding a superior level of service and attention. Ensuring quality sound and video for each attendee was vital, not only for the speakers themselves but to give the online audience a flawless viewing experience. With multiple companies working to deliver the event, it also was essential that every team was aligned and had clear and timely information.
A large number of companies work to make the Paris Peace Forum a success. We joined to support the event’s management and onboarding of speakers and the communications systems that allowed each partner to deliver the event more efficiently. Auditoire, an events and communications agency, managed event production, and Paris-based BlueMotion oversaw the technical streaming aspects.
At the heart of the process was GoRemote’s Virtual Stage Management System (VSMS).
This not only supported the team of virtual stage managers – an expert group of multilingual event professionals – who briefed each speaker in person, but also gave each event partner a live overview of every speaker and their status throughout the day.
The onboarding process was split into two stages to ensure the event went smoothly from a speaker’s perspective.
The aims were to ensure speakers had the smoothest experience possible, were fully briefed for their session, and achieved the best sound and video setup possible. This meant adjusting camera shots, creating a consistent ‘look & feel’ and ensuring they had a stable connection. Each speaker check was automatically logged into the Virtual Stage Management System and assigned a stage manager from the team.
For the Paris Peace Forum, the challenge was to integrate nearly 200 high-level speakers, it took a unique team and skills to manage them, and not surprisingly, the GoRemote team was exceptional. Thanks to their professionalism and their tailor-made tools for collecting technical data and reporting to the project team, Go Remote was a key factor in the success of this event.Phillipe – BlueMotion CEO
Pre-event
Briefings generally took between 15-60 minutes to complete, and data was captured in a structured and concise way. The results were analysed and made accessible to the various stakeholders. Any issues were flagged, and follow-up tasks were actioned, ensuring all event partners remained fully aligned.
During the event
By the event day, 90% of the speakers had passed checks and were ready for their session. Any that experienced issues were advised to arrive early fully test their setup. This process eased pressure on the production team amid the busy event and ensured complex cases were resolved well before the session start time.
As speakers joined the platform, it would trigger “mission control’ and update speaker status to ‘arrived’. Each production partner could see this status change and trigger teams to move into action. Virtual stage managers and event staff would undertake a final briefing, and the technical elements were quickly plugged in. If required, pre-event speaker checks could be accessed at the click of a button.
The data collected during test allowed speakers to be prioritised based on a range of factors, with some requested to arrive early in case of issues.
Each event partner had their own unique dashboard, which showed the event and speaker information in real-time, with upcoming sessions and information on who had arrived and where each was in the onboarding process. These production overviews, combined with audio comms backchannels, ensured every team was kept fully aligned at every point of the event. Here’s an example of those dashboards:
Overall, GoRemote provided an amazing service that far exceeded our expectations and was found to be essential for the smooth running of an event. Phillipe – BlueMotion CEO
The virtual stage managers and management team ensured a highly efficient and effective onboarding system. At all stages, teams were fully informed of who had arrived and when, so they could respond accordingly. Using the GoRemote dashboard to monitor arrivals meant that the production could meet the speaker within 1 minute of their appearance on the platform. This ability to quickly react and stay in sync ensured a quality speaker experience.
The structured and data-driven approach to the speaker management process was instrumental in ensuring speakers successfully reached their session. The result was the successful onboarding of 100% of all the speakers that arrived for their session.
Feedback from all event partners was highly positive, both for the management system and ‘event dashboard’, as well as the expert GoRemote team of virtual stage managers that met the speakers and managed their onboarding.
Large online events have become a new normal, however with so many remote speakers, you need the right tools and team to manage the process.
The model used for the Paris Peace Forum offers a blueprint for speaker management at virtual events. Whether for large-scale virtual events, congresses or for events featuring high-profile speakers. Combining actionable data to identify issues before they occur, dashboards to align the production teams and ease logistics, and a professional team to meet and great speakers makes running events easy and resulting in not only a smooth event for the production team and organisers but critical providing an outstanding speaker and audience experience.
