I had the delightful pleasure of performing at the Opening Ceremony in Symposium 2020 last week organized by Project Management Institute Singapore.
I want to first congratulate the team in making it all possible! They have obviously done their due diligence in testing the system, Remo and explored all contingencies to ensure a smooth conference.
Alicja Kocanda and Praveen Dayal - Co-chair
Stefany Maranghos and Alicja Kocanda - Speaker Management
Aishwarya Prasad supported the actual event in the background.
I had the great pleasure of working with Alicja and her team to ensure a seamless integration of magic into the opening ceremony.
Contrast to the previous years, this conference was 100% held online.
The event was all set to be physically held and when the pandemic hit, Alicja converted the event from a physical one to a virtual one.
All the speakers dialed in before the time of their talk, they all effectively and engagingly used technological tools like voting options and the live chat to engage the guests.
The smoothness of the conference was not a coincidence and I would like share 2 lessons I’ve learnt from being part of this virtual conference.
Be Prepared
True to a Scouts’ motto, “Be Prepared” is one of the things that are easily said but difficult to do as there are so many things that can go wrong. The team had obviously took pains to stress test their system and finding contingencies to problems that might happen.
There were little to no dead time in the transition of the speakers. One of the main reasons I believe is that 2 weeks before the conference, I was asked to do a technical run through on the system and to test the various functions necessary to execute the show. I am certain that all the speakers had to get comfortable during this technical rehearsal as well.
I discussed with Alicja on various methods to maximize engagement and these ranged from using the whiteboard to the live chat function.
Prior to the show, Alicja also made sure that I was aligned in the theme of the Symposium “Adaptive Leadership Mindset” and gave me source materials on learning Project Management Processes. This is particularly helpful for me in customizing my magic for this.
Engaging the Audiences
The inherent pain point of a virtual type event is that it creates a forth wall between the speakers and the audiences. However, I would argue that through the use of effective communication, a virtual event can have more interaction than a traditional event.
In my show, I use the live chat function to get volunteers and to see comments and feedback in real time. This allows me to cater better to the audiences.
Also, usually in a live performance, audible side comments are generally disruptive in nature. However in this virtual platform, the audiences were having fun and sharing their appreciation for the magic that they saw.
Apart from that, I would also share that there were 2 critical factors that allows for maximum engagement:
Content that is relatable
Timeliness of engagement
For this opening ceremony, I designed my magic to be personalize to the audiences and to the theme. Without a personal touch in the content, it would feel like they are simply watching a video and would naturally take a passive role in consuming the content. Having customized my content for this, the audiences were eager to participate in the magic.
Secondly, the timeliness of engagement is crucial for a virtual event especially during the transition from speakers. And this is demonstrated by the emcee, Alicja, where she immediately comes into view when a speaker has some technical difficulties. 10 seconds of dead time on stage feels like 10 minutes to the audiences and she wasted no time in making sure that the feeling of nothingness is reduced.
In conclusion, I believe that virtual events are a strong contender of physical events in light of the current pandemic, there are still many lessons ahead to learn and many opportunities to maximize the potential of a virtual conference through the effective use of technology.
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Alexander Y. is Asia’s Top iPad Magician, who has been invited performing in several countries such as Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, India. However due to COVID19, he has been working from home, reading and practising his magic. Hopefully the time will come soon when he can be performing in the real world live, in the meantime, check out his virtual magic shows!