When James Rees , president of the International Congress and Convention Association ( ICCA ) boarded a flight to the trade body ’ s Paris board meeting at the start of 2020 , it was already apparent that a ‘ plan B ’ would likely be needed for the annual three-day conference , scheduled for November that year .
“ That was the last flight I took ,” Rees recalls . “ A hybrid solution was agreed upon so that the host destination wouldn ’ t miss out on its opportunity to showcase its city and hubs could get together in member
ICCA ’ s hybrid global convention
Last November , ICCA staged an ambitious hybrid congress , featuring content from a host destination and five global hubs , all managed from DRPG ’ s studio in Kidderminster
countries elsewhere around the world . But we had no idea what that would actually look like or how to connect it all together .”
“ LOGISTICALLY , IT WAS VERY CHALLENGING BRINGING ALL THESE HUBS TOGETHER THROUGH OUR KIDDERMINSTER BASE AND BESPOKE PLATFORM , NOT LEAST BECAUSE OF ALL THE TIME DIFFERENCES .”
The host destination was Kaohsiung in Taiwan and Maritz Global Events was chosen as the conference delivery partner . Maritz in turn then appointed DRPG to handle the technical challenge and a hub-spoke hybrid format started to take shape .
Global travel restrictions meant that even if Rees could have boarded a flight to Taiwan , he would have needed to quarantine on arrival so it was decided that the ICCA president would appear live as a hologram to open the 59th annual congress instead .
“ I made my opening ceremony speech from a holographic studio in Hammersmith and could see myself beamed live onto the stage in Kaohsiung ,“ Rees says . “ At the end of the session , local dignitaries joined my hologram onstage for a photo-call , which for me in Hammersmith was a slightly surreal experience .”
Rees spent the rest of congress in DRPG ’ s UK studio in Kidderminster , from where the event content was broadcast , moderated , edited and archived for on-demand .
Five global hub locations with live audiences differing in size depending on the restrictions of each country had two-way connections through a bespoke DRPG portal and were able to stream their own local programmes simultaneously . These localised mini events took place in Riyadh , Cape Town , Luxembourg , Seoul and Malaga , with Kaohsiung also contributing host destination content .
“ Logistically , it was very challenging bringing all these hubs together through our Kidderminster base and bespoke platform , not least because of all the time differences ,” remembers the event ’ s project lead , Zac Goodman from DRPG . “ We were in the studio from 4am each day . Kaohsiung would commence each of the three daily programmes and then Riyadh would come online , watch the earlier Kaohsiung content before starting their own tailored programme .
“ Each hub then joined in and audiences could switch into any channel depending on their timezones and either see on-demand sessions or what