Local AV hire for Townhall meetings, how to be successful and clear
What is a town hall meeting and why do you need Audio Visual (AV) solutions to make it work?
Town hall meetings generally involve all employees of a company and is designed to create a sense of community by engaging with all and obtaining feedback about current operations. As can be imagined some organisations have employees in different offices, different towns and even different countries so may be hard to house all under one roof.
Firstly, having all employees in one space the need for a large space which is often hard to hear and quite far from a small wall TV or computer screen can cause problems with accessibility for all users. Often the use of a microphone or several along with speakers can help amplify the sound and so speakers and presenters can deliver to all staff. Larger screens and projectors may be necessary to allow all employees to see the contents of a presentation or show charts and organisational structures.
Secondly, integration is needed for those remote employees. How are they kept inclusive to the action happening in the room both audio and visually, by integrating web casting using popular workplace systems such as Microsoft Teams, and Zoom can allow remote users to see the action in the main town hall, and for those in person be able to see the remote people logged in enhancing the sense of community and engagement.
The photos to the right show a straightforward town hall for about 60 in person town hall with streaming to remote employees and the CEO in another country. In the top picture you may notice two dark items on the coffee table, these are boundary microphones and designed to pickup the three presenters sat at the stools, a radio hand held microphone was placed to enable audience members to talk and be heard backed up with a small speaker system in the room. This simple setup of a projector screen and small amount of audio kit enabled 2 offices to connect thousands of miles apart.
Clever speaker Placement for in the round
The picture to the left shows one of 6 tables setup “in the round”, this is still a fairly new way of presenting as all the employees are around the presenter. Moving away from the more traditional classroom style or Banquet style (read about table placements here), presenting in the round is often more enjoyable as its something different. It needs to have a confident presenter or keynote speaker in order to drive while constantly turning to engage with all, but it really works.
When presented with this centre middle focus speaker placements can often be hard to place and not cause sightline issues. We’ve invested in small table speakers which are discrete and provide great audio from microphones as well as remote webcasts. You can see one in the picture to the left and is the small white box just next to the number 5 sign.
Engagement and excitement Catchbox Throwable Microphone
Integrating a throwable microphone into your town hall meeting provides a easy way for the audience to participate. As the name suggests these microphones are soft material covered and designed to be thrown without causing damage to persons or surroundings. They introduce something unique and more funky than simply a hand held microphone being handed around.
Individual microphones and speakers
Each delegate or one between two can share a microphone speaker station for presentations. This controlled way of holding a townhall or AGM provides perfect audio to each person. The chair has control of the delegate microphones being active and can override them. This system seamelessly connects into a teams or zoom session and provides two way audio
