Immersion is the key to creating a great event. When talking about a memorable event, you see that what people remember is the experience, not individual elements. Sure, these individual elements definitely contribute to the overall experience, but in order to understand how this works, you need to look at the big picture.
Audio-visual innovations, for instance, are so advantageous that their usefulness almost seems self-explanatory. However, it’s their integration that makes all the difference. While choosing these solutions, you need to figure out how you intend to use them to deliver a better message.
Depending on your event, you may want to either increase the clarity/immersion of the message, boost the overall ambient impact, or do anything along those lines.
With that in mind, here are some ways to enhance the event atmosphere with audiovisual innovations and some principles to follow while doing so.
- Enhancing storytelling
More likely than not, your event will have some sort of presentation integrated into it. If it’s a corporate event, you’ll have a product placement, an ad, or a performance report, while if it’s a wedding, you might have a heartwarming slide show of a story.
The bottom line is that you want everyone to see it, and you want everyone to hear it.
First, the screen size needs to be adequate. You need to understand the importance of everyone being able to see it, which is why the screen needs to be visible from every spot and every seat in the room. Otherwise, different attendees will have a different recollection of the event.
Second, you need to make sure that the quality of sound is equally distributed across the venue. You can’t just increase the volume; you need to strategically place speakers in all the right places so that the sound reaches even the niches.
As you can see, the right audio-visual equipment can drastically change the event in question.
- Encouraging engagement
The problem with most old presentation materials, learning materials, and merchandise was that they went in one direction. The textbook conveys the information the same way, regardless of how you listen. It’s telling you the exact same thing, regardless of whether you’re soaking in every word or barely even skimming.
This is not the same with modern forms of education and informational tools.
People are accustomed to using screens and interactive content formats on a daily basis, and in order to make the experience immersive and relatable for them, you need to follow suit.
First of all, while this method is quite expensive, interactive boards can revolutionize the way your audience engages with the content you produce and distribute.
A far cheaper option would be to create a system with scannable QR codes. This way, you’re creating a system that allows all the visitors to lean into their personal tech and integrate them into your system. It will allow for a far better engagement, and, with the right consent management, superior data gathering and user analytics.
Better engagement will make you impossible to say no to, which is one of the pillars of success.
- Preparing for the future
Unless you’re renting audio-visual equipment (which some people do), you need to think about the long-reaching consequences of your hardware acquisition.
Just think about it: when buying a high-end gaming PC, what you’re actually aiming for is to buy a rig that will be able to play the games that are announced and not yet out. With each year, the graphics settings get higher, and you need to find a way to keep up with it. Upgrades are possible, but when you put it all on paper, they’re incredibly expensive.
On the one hand, well-produced high-resolution content needs adequate hardware to be displayed. You want to improve the overall quality of the visuals by a significant margin but also understand that, in the future, content formats will be even more demanding.
Just think about 3D holographic visualizers. Not a lot of venues are using them, but this doesn’t mean that they won’t be huge in the future. Of course, the old-school Sci-Fi always portrayed holographs as the staple of future communication. Not only are we still not in that era, but even the Sci-Fi of today are portraying this less often. Still, there’s an opportunity here to use a medium that no one else is using.
Other than this, you have augmented reality, real-time interactive boards (that attendees can use), and much, much more.
- Intelligent lighting
The truth about AV technology is that it’s more than screens and speakers. The right light can make or break the overall impression, so you have to take that into consideration.
In the past, light was adjusted manually, but this required incredibly skilled technicians, who were in high demand and, even then, weren’t universally available.
With modern technology, AI analytics, and sensory technology, having an adjustable lighting system is more accurate than ever.
Just think about it this way: every light suits a certain type of imagery. Color composition (even the exact same hue) will look different under a different light. The best that could be done in the past is finding a great average or median. Today, this is no longer an issue since an automated system can control it for optimal impact.
Moreover, now, the lighting system can work hand in hand with the sound system, screen themes, and much more. We’re talking about end-to-end software capabilities for controlling your AV system in the future.
Wrap up
At the end of the day, online events are slowly taking over the industry. Even offline events are affected by this rapid digitalization, and you have to keep up with technological advancements. Your audience expects website-grade interactivity even in person, not to mention the quality of sound and imagery (and user expectations regarding this), which are getting higher with each passing day.
The most important thing to understand is that these expectations are just getting higher. So, when buying equipment, you need to think about the future. Picking something that scales can make a difference. Sure, the costs are higher but in the long run, it will be more than worth it.