As meetings took on a virtual personality with many challenges, Steve Goodman, managing director of MeetingAdvice, adjusted his offerings to create enhanced virtual meetings with the company’s new Studio. After the COVID-19 pandemic materialized, people stopped gathering in person, and live meetings and the convention industry came to a complete halt. MeetingAdvice saw the need to pivot.
Goodman devised the studio concept as a solution for clients who conveyed how difficult it was to conduct virtual meetings from their homes with no support, faulty bandwidth and other nuances resulting from work-from-home arrangements. At the studio, clients enter a full control room that is wired for production. The staging room is preset for lighting, and clients can choose to broadcast live directly from the studio or record the session for a later presentation. The show director works in harmony with the technical director, camera engineer and playback engineer to produce extraordinary events, and the team also can incorporate video, PowerPoint assets and Q&A into presentations and integrate presentations into Zoom calls.
A private area also has been created for clients to rehearse in a safe, relaxed environment. MeetingAdvice Studio allows clients to record speeches, messages as well a broadcast events via live streaming or pre-record for later use. The studio is complete with three production cameras and a full 24-foot stage that can be custom configured to a variety of settings. Unlike other production studios, clients have the ability to leave with a finished product.
“Our production studio is the equivalent of walking into a television studio and seeing much of the same equipment,” said Goodman. “All of our services are performed in a safe, friendly environment where our clients receive the most professional results.”
MeetingAdvice also offers coaching services where staff members will assist with pre-studio remote presentation preparation, agenda planning, storyboarding and scripting and presentation coaching, educating clients on the best positions for the camera, the right sound and how to keep audience members engaged while listening from home.
“With MeetingAdvice Studio, guests walk out with an edited version of their presentation, created with real-time editing,” says Goodman. “No one else in the city is doing this.”
“Since March 8 our event company has experienced the loss of hundreds of meetings scheduled for 2020,” says Goodman. “Instead of going home, we pivoted and created a virtual meetings platform with our own studio.”
Staff at MeetingAdvice Studio follow strict health and safety procedures. All production studio team members wear masks, surfaces are frequently sanitized, hand sanitizing stations are available, and the team has implemented special covers for microphones.
When live meetings start happening again, Goodman’s team is ready. “Best case scenario, there will be a hybrid of both live and virtual meetings, and we’re prepared for both,” he explains. “The studio will be able to continually help our clients offer these hybrid meetings.”
Goodman adds, “We know this is a difficult time for everyone, not just the hospitality industry. If we can help create a path for those companies having difficulty, we can support each other as we move through this together.”
