BlueJeans-Events

 

We were all supposed to be gathering in Orlando this week to join up with our closest enterprise communications and collaborations friends at Enterprise Connect for the first time in two years. Well, as things go these days, the situation changed, and we are once again greeting each other virtually from all our different corners of the world. While we are still looking forward to the day when we can all convene together again in an overly air-conditioned exhibition hall, it should not be taken for granted how far virtual events have come in the past 18 months and how these events have become woven into the fabric of our personal and work lives.   

In a recent IDG Survey, 83% of respondents acknowledged that they expect their virtual event attendance to increase post-pandemic. From an attendee’s perspective, virtual events take travel logistics off the table and deliver incredible flexibility. For event hosts, virtual events provide an opportunity to recruit more attendees and drive significantly broader participation. To emphasize this point, the same survey reports that 85% of respondents cited plans to evaluate new virtual event technology during 2021, further highlighting increased demand for improved platform performance and more robust capabilities.     

Today, we are excited to announce a massive leap forward in attendee capacity for BlueJeans Events with record-breaking support for up to 150,000 interactive virtual event participants. We are seeing demand for super-sized virtual events and are excited to be the first virtual event provider to meet customers head on with their requirements. Each of these 150,000 attendees will have access to the full complement of BlueJeans Events interactivity features, where they can participate in the Q&A, chat, polling, and raise their hand to be promoted onto the virtual stage. With this new level of capacity, BlueJeans Events will be even better suited for streaming industry-leading virtual conferences and forward-thinking, fan-centric entertainment activations.    

As Tess Vismale, Chief Event Executioner at iSocialExecution, Inc., put it “Technology should be able to accentuate and help us in our daily lives, not create barriers for it. With these latest enhancements, BlueJeans is making event technology inclusive and accessible for organizations of all sizes to enable them to deliver services at the highest level.”

With up to 150,000 attendees now able to attend a BlueJeans Event, we recognize that it’s unlikely that all those attendees will speak the same language. As event capacities grow, it’s incumbent on event coordinators to create more inclusivity by enabling multi-language support, so every event attendee can get the most out of the show. We are excited to announce two new capabilities today to help your events be more accessible to wider audiences.   

Closed Caption Translation - BlueJeans Events is expanding beyond English-only closed captioning to deliver automated, real-time closed captioning in over 70 new languages.  Event hosts will have the ability to select which languages they want to support during event setup and attendees will easily be able select their preferred language for captions directly in the live event.  This feature will be available for preview in October.   

Simultaneous Interpretation - Specific multi-language events require a human touch to ensure the appropriate message is delivered for enhanced understanding. We are excited to deliver simultaneous interpretation for BlueJeans Events that supports up to 5 concurrent audio channels for delivering simultaneous and/or relay interpretation. Event interpreters receive a designated invitation and have role-specific responsibilities that allow them to set their incoming and outgoing languages alongside their volume and audio mix. Event moderators have the ability to manage and monitor interpreters’ audio, video, and language settings and also have a backstage chat functionality in case they need to have a sidebar conversation. Attendees simply select the Interpretation button on the left side of the player window to select their preferred language. This feature will be available for preview in October.   

Beyond ensuring that everyone has ability to best comprehend the content presented in an Event, we also know that presenters want to eliminate distractions that may potentially impact attendee engagement. To help with this effort, we are excited to introduce Background Blur for all video-enabled Event participants. Presenters and Moderators will be able to set their blur density either at the hair check screen before joining the Event or directly through their video settings once in the Event. Background Blur is currently in preview.   

Finally, with the volume of virtual events continuing to accelerate, we know that event hosts are passionate about ensuring that their content is made available to the widest audience possible. Over the past year, we have worked hard to deliver a best-in-class embed experience for our live player and interactivity widgets. Now, we are excited to announce the ability to embed BlueJeans Events recordings so that our customers have the opportunity to take Event content and drop it onto any HTML page for on-demand viewing. This feature is perfect for marketers looking to create custom landing experiences for demand generation programs that feature event content as the centerpiece. Internal stakeholders will also find it useful for improving the "shareability" of all-hands and town hall meetings.   

Overall, we are so energized by all the excitement in the marketplace surrounding virtual events and we are proud to deliver an incredibly powerful platform that can help event hosts get the most out of every single event and beyond. Our new features speak to the ever-expanding possibilities for virtual events and how we can truly connect people across the world going forward.

For more information about BlueJeans Events, please visit our product page.