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There have been plenty of recent examples of how to take events virtual – from political conventions to television award shows. This year, the Corporate Volunteer Council of Atlanta (CVC) was no different.
When CVC typically hosts its Impact Awards each year, the event brings together business leaders, corporate sponsors and local celebrities, who understand the importance of making a difference in their community. As the date for the 2020 Impact Awards drew near, organizers knew they couldn’t choose to cancel and not recognize companies and individuals addressing social justice, leading skills-based volunteer efforts, and integrating volunteerism into business strategy and culture.
So they did what many organizations have decided to do and took the event virtual. But to maximize the effectiveness and frankly, the impact, of the Impact Awards, CVC engaged our team at WM Events to pull together all of the speakers, presenters, and award winners into a cohesive program. We delivered the feeling of a live TV awards program with the option for roughly 150 attendees to communicate throughout the event. But behind the curtain, our secret to success was recording most of the content in advance then seamlessly organizing it for the one-hour event.
Recording Speakers in Advance
CVC had partnered with 11Alive to produce videos of the presenters and speakers and was excited to have weekday anchor Cheryl Preheim serve as emcee. After recording Cheryl’s content, along with videos from CVC President Cheryl Kortemeier and the keynote address from Xavier Ramey, 11Alive sent us the raw files, and created one seamless show video with a cohesive look.
We had been inspired by our experience with the 2020 Allie Awards to ask all nominees to send in thank you speeches in advance. CVC notified us of the winners, and we were able to incorporate those into the event video. And when Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms offered to send a message just two days before the event, we worked to get that included too.
Creating a Run of Show
The video editing necessitated a thorough run of show and edited script, which we organized from start to finish. Our experience with live, in-person events prepared us to make these hyper-specific, and we used color-coded graphics to keep everyone on track and make sure things went as planned. One exciting factor that is typically not available with in-person events is that we were able to do a complete dry run the day be fore the event.
Pulling it All Together
Because of all of the prep work, the day of the event, we simply pressed play and made sure all of the features were working properly. By that time, only the pre-event 15-minute live volunteer project with Hands on Atlanta was not recorded in advance. All of the event videos had been compiled into one video file in the right order as per the run of show.
To provide the feeling of a live event, CVC had their crew and co-chairs manning the chat function, which was open to attendees for commenting, and sharing on social media was encouraged. Throughout the event, prizes were given to guests who were most active in the chat.
Pre-recording the event removed nearly all room for error. For us (and William’s pup, Missy), the experience was enjoyable and benefited from CVC’s partnership with 11Alive. For the client, putting together all of the content in advance resulted in total peace of mind – and you can see the proof in the comments on our Instagram post.
