Professional Sound - February 2021 | Page 30

BRINGING ELEGANCE & CONNECTION

TO LARGE-SCALE VIRTUAL EVENTS

How Toronto ’ s Bespoke AV raised the bar for presenting virtual galas , conferences & more
BY KEVIN YOUNG PHOTOS BY KRIS DI PIETRO

For Bespoke AV , an event isn ’ t just a gathering . It ’ s an opportunity for connection , meaningful engagement , and for participants to further their goals , individually and / or professionally . To maintain that in the virtual event space , the company has applied its wealth of industry experience to the creation of solutions that allow them to offer decidedly elegant and highly-interactive events ranging from corporate / government meetings , to press conferences and conventions , and even gala dinners / awards shows .

Although these events are dramatically different when compared to pre-COVID iterations , Bespoke AV ’ s approach to mounting them and the innovative solution they use to do so is a natural , if virtual , extension of the work they ’ ve always done . “ Customization is our core tenet ,” says Mike Wilson , COO and co-founder of Bespoke AV . “ It ’ s literally baked right into our name , so every one of our events is custom-tailored to our clients ’ needs .”
Those needs vary widely , including webcasting for government applications ; major financial institutions and telecommunications providers ; the convocation of students at post-secondary institutions ; conferences ; and virtually any other type of event . While the Toronto-based firm has ample experience in remote events , the COVID-19 pandemic prompted them to dramatically up their game to meet the demands of our new shared reality .
As soon as the pandemic hit , to serve their mandate of finding new and unique ways to bring people together , Bespoke AV immediately set out to provide clients with a means of mounting virtual events that allow for a depth of connection and interplay well beyond that offered by your average Zoom meeting ; an innovative approach that proved highly-attractive to existing and new clients alike .
“ We had tremendous success in October , November , and December ,” Wilson explains . “ The uptick by our clients has been incredible . They ’ re really embracing this and they ’ ve accepted that there ’ s a place for virtual going forward ,” even as the vaccine rollout ramps up , he adds : “ For most of 2021 , that [ virtual space ] is where we have to live .” Bespoke AV ’ s clients are also finding that virtual events offer different and more expansive opportunities than in-person events in some cases . “ If you think about a fundraising gala , for example , overall event costs are dramatically decreased by not having to rent a venue and pay for food , beverage , décor , and – despite the pandemic and everybody ’ s wallets being tighter – they ’ re still bringing in a tremendous amount of donations ,” Wilson continues . “ A few clients we did work for in late 2020 told us that they don ’ t think they ’ ll actually go back to doing in-person events , and will continue virtually into the future . They ’ re saying they love it and would be happy to do this again .”
That enthusiasm has a lot to do with the high-quality end product and guest experience Bespoke AV offers . Given that enthusiasm , as demand for their service increases , the company will continue to allocate more space and resources to the systems inhabiting their Toronto and Ottawa offices . “ In September 2020 we had five control rooms
online with a sixth coming ,” says Technical Manager Andrew Bernacki . “ Now we ’ re up to 12 control rooms in Toronto , and we have additional control rooms in Ottawa .” The Ottawa control rooms came online in November 2020 , he adds , following the addition of critical network infrastructure to the facility there .
While the spaces vary in size , they share infrastructure and , true to the company ’ s name , should a given client / event require more of anything in terms of the system or space , “ We ’ ll build a one-off in our warehouse if necessary ,” Bernacki says .
The small spaces differ the most from room to room in terms of the technology inhabiting them . “ But the functionality is the same . And when we get into medium and larger control rooms , those are item for item virtually identical ,” Bernacki explains . “ Typically , our ‘ smalls ’ have a couple of laptops for ingest , with audio going into a small format console for mixing . From there that audio comes out analog and into a video switcher , a Roland V-60HD , where the audio is embedded with the video signal and then is transmitted to either a Zoom webinar or an RTMP stream from one of our webcast encoders .”
30 PROFESSIONAL SOUND