Common Problems - Shared Solutions Symposium

We recently worked with the team at AIATSIS and the National Film and Sound Archive to virtually deliver the Common Problems - Shared Solutions Symposium, with a view to identify and solve common issues and problems in order to preserve audio-visual materials. Originally planned as a hybrid event, increasing COVID restrictions led to a pivot to a fully virtual event. The event took place over 2 days, with 1.5 days of presentations and a CEO roundtable discussion, followed by a half day of participant workshops exploring four key areas of considerations to help define the future of digital preservation beyond UNESCO’s Deadline 2025.

 We worked with the team to understand the needs and aims of the Symposium, starting with the technical specifics of running two days of back to back sessions, often with less than 5 minutes in between speakers, as well as running 4 workshop sessions simultaneously, with facilitators focusing on specific areas of expertise and each participant being able to participate in each session on a rotating basis. We selected Hopin as the final output platform, while using our Microsoft Teams workflow to be able to dial in speakers virtually using software they were familiar with. We used a production switcher to allow us to create dynamic layouts that we could switch between to ensure that the end result for viewers looked more like a TV broadcast than just another Zoom meeting. 

We undertook technical rehearsals with 20 speakers across Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the United States, ensuring they were comfortable with Teams, how their session would run on the day, timings, time zones and logistics and ensuring that they had a strong internet connection, good lighting, framing and sound.

Overall, the Symposium was a success, with 205 attendees, an average feedback score of 8.5 and an average time spent at the virtual event of 15 hours and 46 minutes.