We spent last week at the annual Red Hat Summit in Boston, the largest Summit yet! According to Red Hat, it was a week full of "new technologies, new relationships, and broad new possibilities”.

What’s not new is our relationship with Red Hat and our involvement in the Summit. Along the way we have identified some tips to help manage a large scale event.

BlueJeans sales engineer, Robert La Frentz, was onsite in Boston with Red Hat last week and shared some of his best practices:

“The primary key to success is to always plan ahead. Pre-broadcast testing ensured connectivity and video/audio feed hand off from the production crew. Know your equipment. Connectivity to the broadcast was as easy as launching the BlueJeans event application and selecting the correct video and audio sources.

The core for the events consisted of 3 moderators from 3 different locations collaborating in real-time providing seamless connections viewed around the globe. A simple click of the start broadcast on the Moderator UI allowed us to push the broadcast to the masses. The moderator chat allowed constant communications between moderators. The Command Center capabilities allowed deeper insight to each participant connection ensuring the quality connection to each endpoint.

During the summit, Red Hat broadcasted over 15 hours of live sessions connecting users from more than 47 countries. Endpoints consisted of: – Mobile (IOS and Android), Room systems (H.323 and SIP), Browser/WebRTC (Safari, Firefox, Chrome), PSTN (dial in via phone), as well as BlueJeans desktop application (Windows and Mac). With the ability to provide agnostic connection capabilities, BlueJeans allowed for participants to connect where it was convenient for all, any time zone, any location, providing a simple click to join for the end participants.”

Here are some pictures Robert took of the event to give it some perspective.

Backstage Magic Area...

Main Stage image;

Magical station providing the streams via BlueJeans Events;

We also recently spoke with Christian Binder of Red Hat who manages live events for a growing audience of employees, developers, customers and conference attendees. Christian identified five tips for a successful event:

1. Communicate!

It takes a village to run an event. Sometimes that village is more like a hut and sometimes it’s like a major metropolitan city. Whether your team is small or large, ensuring everyone is on the same page is absolutely critical.

2. Know your equipment.

This is one of those details that always seems to fall through the cracks until right before the event begins. If you’re presenting remotely, know the Wi-Fi speed you’re dealing with in whatever environment you might be in—your home office or a hotel room, for example. This is especially important if you’re in a shared space where you’re not getting a strong, dedicated signal. Fortunately, BlueJeans has resiliencies in place to compensate for poor internet speeds, but it helps to be conscious of your environment and your setup.

3. Set deadlines and stick to them.

For event organizers, make sure you set a drop-dead date for finalized presentation materials. For presenters, make sure you adhere to those deadlines. It’s a lot more comforting knowing that your material is finalized well before your event, rather than making last-second changes.

4. Dry run, dry run, and then dry run again.

If you have the opportunity to do a dry run, do it. And then do it again. Maybe your first dry run is just getting a feel for the space—whether that is in a physical room or on BlueJeans Events. In practice, I do this by holding a 30-minute training session with people who might have a webinar or virtual team meeting to get them used to the Events interface. It’s always better to know what you’re working with in advance, instead of seeing it for the first time when you’re about to present.

5. Relax!

Above all else, this might be the most important. Events are stressful. You might be getting ready to put on an event in front of 5,000 people. That’s scary! Take a deep breath, be confident in yourself and just go for it. No matter what happens, the sun will still rise tomorrow and the world will keep turning.

Some great advice from two industry veterans who get a thrill from living in the event trenches and sharing these moments with people who can’t attend in person. Congratulations to everyone at Red Hat for another terrific Summit and thank you for allowing BlueJeans to help you share it.

Check out the Red Hat blog for more information and news from Red Hat Summit 2019.