Midwich Live From The AV Awards
On November 5th, Chris Neto and Jenny Hicks had the exciting honour of presenting a pre-show live stream at the AV awards! In a glammed-up version of Midwich live, with prosecco in hand, the duo interviewed AV A-listers.
The energetic evening began with an introduction to Tim Albright, Chief Marketing Officer at Conference Technologies. After discussing the unfortunate ordeal of Tim’s lost luggage at the airport, he goes on to explain what it’s like returning to in-person events. He said, “there’s an energy here that we haven’t had in a while” and the excitement of seeing old friends and meeting new people.
Next up, Rachael Hamilton, AV Business and Marketing Consultant, discusses why the 2021 AV awards were especially different for her. Before Rachael founded her own business, I AM RACHAEL, she was the Brand Director of AV Magazine.
This year she returned as a guest, but she gave Jenny and Chris a little insight into what the AV awards is like to plan, “I don’t think people really understand the effort that goes into organising an event like this. It’s the Oscars, the benchmark of the industry. AV magazine has a standard to hit and they have to beat that every single year”.
Following on, Jenny and Chris were “starstruck” to chat with Michael Blackman, Managing Director at Integrated Systems Events (ISE). ISE is the world’s leading AV and systems integration exhibition. Although ISE was not able to go ahead last year, ISE has been working hard to show the industry that they’re still alive by putting on small events in Europe earlier this year.
ISE will be returning to Barcelona in 2022, and according to Michael, “we are putting all our preparations in place to make sure that ISE 2022 is a real event. We have just under 700 exhibitors at the moment. Our normal show is about 1,200. All the major players are there. It’s looking good and we’re looking forward to it”.
Guests can expect to see all of the usual conferences plus Smart Workplaces, activity for the live events industry and more is yet to be announced!
Stuart Holmes, our very own director of PSCo also joined the live stream. Chris and Jenny visited our experience centre, Innovation House only the day before. Check out what they got up to below!
That’s a wrap! Such an amazing day with our hosts @midwichjenny @tdalbright @chris_neto #InnovationHouse #AVTweeps #personalbranding #futuretrends #selfie pic.twitter.com/l6KDUwmxFW
— Midwich (@MidwichLtd) November 4, 2021
It was the first year that Midwich entered the venue project of the year. When Jenny asked Stuart why he believes that Innovation House deserved to win the award, he said “Innovation House is unique, it’s new, it’s exciting and it’s what the industry needs to get everyone back together”.
Lastly, Jenny and Chris were joined again by Clive Couldwell, editor of AV Magazine to discuss getting ready for the AV awards. The addition of the red carpet especially added a touch of glamour this year. Although Midwich Live didn’t get a sneak peek of inside the event, Jenny tells viewers that it looks wonderful.
Chris finished the interview by saying “it is wonderful to see people back with people for this event, the networking is something people have craved for 18+ months and just looking around as somebody who’s been here a couple of times, it feels like it did and that is the important part. It’s not a makeshift version, it feels like it did two years ago”.
Midwich Live’s First In-Person Event, Supported By Holdan
Not only does this event mark the highly anticipated return of in-person events, but it was also the first time that Midwich Live was streamed from a live in-person event. It would not have been possible without the support from Holdan’s technical team.
The technology needed to facilitate Jenny and Chris on stage with numerous guests bought on from the red carpet. There was also pre-recorded content to be played in. All of the kit needed to be operated from the side of the stage and de-rigged and packed away in 20 minutes.
Three cameras were used for the live stream, comprising of two BirdDog P4K PTZ cameras and a Panasonic LUMIX BGH1 block camera. As Jenny, Chris and guests were moving around the stage it was important to have cameras that were fully remote-controlled and able to move.
The Holdan team also used a Roland V-160HD switcher, audio equipment from Sennheiser and Azden and the Inovativ Voyager 36 EVO, a compact cart workstation. Holdan have completed a full breakdown of what technology Holdan used to make the first Midwich Livestream in-person event a success!
Midwich Live is aired monthly and is streamed via Midwich’s YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter channels. The next live show is scheduled for Tuesday 30th November at 3pm (GMT). Jenny, Chris and a host of special guests will be discussing what ‘hardware-as-a-service’ means in the AV channel.
In the meantime, catch up on any missed episodes by checking them out below.
