Hosting Successful Hybrid Events
Hybrid meetings and events have become commonplace in our work, but they vary widely in quality. This document attempts to walk through some of the possibilities and pitfalls in planning and running hybrid meetings, especially (but not only) in Denney 311 and in the fourth-floor seminar rooms. It is not a technical how-to document; for technical documentation, see the Denney 311 A/V Equipment and the Denney 419, 435, 447 pages.
Who’s responsible?
Unless you are working with a specific staff member whose job it is to manage technical details, it is your responsibility as an event organizer to plan for the technical needs of your event, both in the lead-up and during the event. This doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself — Mike Bierschenk and his student staff in the Digital Media Project are available for consultation, and you can certainly enlist the help of others to manage various in-meeting aspects — but you should think about technical needs as part of your planning.
Before the Event
When we say ‘hybrid’ here, that just means there are attendees in both the physical space and a virtual one, typically Zoom. Within that broad definition a wide array of styles and formats are possible, so before anything else, you need to know what you want your event to look like, from the perspective of hybridity.
Specifically, you’ll want to have in mind:
- whether this is a more monodirectional presentation (e.g. a visiting writer or a scholar), a more conversational interaction (e.g. a committee meeting, a seminar class), or — most commonly — a mixture (e.g. a formal presentation followed by Q&A)
- how many speakers are anticipated, and whether they’ll be present in person or online
- what sorts of material may be projected (e.g. PowerPoint, video clips, documents)
- what degree of polish/formality is desired
The following topics address many possibilities, and knowing the answers to these questions will help you to choose which are the best methods.
Often organizers default to using their Personal Meeting ID for events, but we recommend creating a separate meeting within Zoom specifically for the event. This allows you to change any necessary settings, set up automated recording import to Mediasite, and add alternate hosts if necessary, without changing the settings on your Personal Meeting ID. It also allows you to advertise the event with a Zoom link without advertising your Personal Meeting ID.
It’s always a good idea to do a test run so that you (and anyone else who’s assisting you) can familiarize yourself with the tech and how it works. As much as possible, your test should align with the planned setup for the event: practice displaying the same sorts of media, use the same devices you intend to use, and have someone join your Zoom meeting so you can see how it works to include remote participants.
Transmitting In-Room Content
This is most event organizers’ first consideration: remote attendees need to see and hear what’s happening in the physical space. Depending on event needs, this can be relatively straightforward, or it can be quite complex.
Audio is technologically simple: all speakers need to be picked up by the microphone(s) tied into Zoom.
There is a more difficult and subtle social component to audio, however: when sharing physical space, members of a conversation use non-verbal cues to track complex conversational interactions, but those cues are often not legible to remote participants, and it’s therefore much harder for remote attendees to follow crosstalk, even if the microphone is picking it up clearly. Therefore, it’s a good practice in hybrid meetings to follow conversational patterns that are more similar to those used in remote meetings, as much as possible: avoid overlap and allow for more explicit turn-switching in conversation. (This has the added benefit of allowing remote participants clearer openings to contribute to the conversation.)
Video is slightly more complicated, and different spaces have different obstacles and affordances. The default video settings for whatever room you’re in may be just fine, but they’re not the only options.
Specific details/considerations for various spaces follow.
For technical details see the Denney 311 AV documentation.
Audio
There are no area mics in Denney 311, so all speakers need to use a handheld mic (or the lapel mic), without exception.
All of the mics in Denney 311 are tied into one common input, and connection is nearly instant when a mic is turned on. As long as a speaker is speaking into a mic, no matter which, they should be picked up properly by Zoom.
Proper mic placement: handheld mics like those in 311 are very directional. Imagine a line coming out of the grill of the microphone, following the line of the microphone body, with a relatively narrow cone surrounding it. In order to be best picked up by the microphone, the speaker’s mouth needs to be within the cone, aiming roughly toward the head of the mic. Zoom is quite good at compensating for bad placement, but orienting microphone stands with this placement in mind will help tremendously. Those holding a microphone in their hand should speak along that imaginary line, rather than holding the mic like an ice cream cone.
Primary speakers (e.g. presenters, panelists) should have a dedicated microphone, whether a handheld or a lapel mic.
Secondary speakers (e.g. audience members during a Q&A) may share microphones. These can be handed to speakers by event staff, passed hand-to-hand among attendees, or placed on mic stands at convenient locations around the room. Make clear to attendees during the event how you intend to handle microphone usage, and when necessary remind speakers to use the mics.
Video
There are two cameras in Denney 311, one facing the front of the room and the other facing the rear. Both cameras have a few pre-coded presets — see the Denney 311 technical documentation — and it’s possible to program additional ad hoc ones as needed for a particular event. You can switch between cameras during an event, but you cannot display both simultaneously.
For formal presentational events where the speaker is largely stationary at the lectern, the front-facing camera should be zoomed in and centered on the lectern; use preset 2 as a starting point, but adjust as needed to account for speakers’ height, etc.
For audience Q&As, we often leave the camera focused on the presenter. While in 311 it’s technically possible to switch to the audience-facing camera and zoom in on speakers, there is no automatic/algorithmic control for this sort of thing, so in practice it’s usually too complicated to be feasible, especially without a dedicated tech person to manage that process. (Even without a change in video, all speakers should still use a microphone as described above.)
For informal collaborative events like a committee meeting, consider using the rear-facing camera to capture the table or chair grouping where the in-person attendees are seated. Be sure to test out the camera angle beforehand; you may need to set the table further from the screen than you expect in order to capture the scene well.
When using the built-in computer, the soundbar + camera positioned below the TV screen will capture all the needed audio and video. The installed camera has automatic pan/zoom and will shift to frame in-room attendees as optimally as possible. The soundbar’s microphone is fairly sensitive, but will do a better job if in-room attendees speak up a bit; no need to yell, but do speak clearly.
Be mindful of seating and avoid having anyone sit directly in front of the camera. In general, when possible, leave the TV side of the table empty: think of that side as the ‘seat’ for remote attendees.
Be aware that when using a personal device via wired or wireless display, the built-in soundbar and camera are not available. It’s still technically possible to have a successful hybrid event in these rooms using a personal device, but it’s much more complicated; whenever possible we encourage the use of the built-in equipment.
Whenever possible, schedule events in spaces that have appropriate equipment already, rather than trying to retrofit with external equipment.
The classroom pool spaces all have a speaker-facing camera at the back of the room, and the podium mic ties into Zoom automatically. If speakers stay at the podium, then their audio will generally be picked up well. For video, use the touch-panel controls to choose a preset that is zoomed in on the podium for single-speaker events.
Depending on the room’s capability, it may be difficult or impossible to properly mic secondary speakers, e.g. questions from audience members. (This is true in classroom pool spaces; the table mic on the podium can sometimes pick up nearby speakers, but not a whole room.) In that case, primary speakers should be cognizant of this limitation and revoice questions, in whole or in summary, before responding.
Similarly, built-in video may be ill-suited to framing anyone but the primary speaker. If speakers who will not be at the podium will be making only relatively minor contributions this is acceptable, but if speakers outside the fixed camera’s range will be making significant contributions, consider whether you can find a more appropriate location.
In general, use Zoom’s built-in Share Screen functionality to share projected content, rather than relying on a camera to pick it up. Most conference cameras, including those in departmental spaces and in the classroom pool rooms, are not well-suited to that need, and the quality will be poor, even illegible. (The classroom pool rooms do have presets that are focused on the projection screen area, but these are better suited to displaying chalkboard/whiteboard content than projected content.)
If your projected content includes audio (e.g. video clips), then when selecting the content from the Share Screen dialog box, select the “Share Sound” checkbox at the bottom of the box. (If you forget, you can click the three-dot menu in the floating meeting controls and select the option there.)
Similarly, if your projected content includes video, check “Optimize for video clip.” Be aware that optimizing for video can make non-video screen shares less crisp; if your content contains a mix of video and static content (e.g. a PowerPoint with an embedded video clip), you can toggle that optimization on and off, as needed, in the three-dot menu in the floating meeting controls.
Including Remote Attendees
While occasionally the department hosts events that might be better termed ‘livestreamed’ — that is, where remote attendees are simply noninteracting viewers — typically a hybrid event makes an effort to include remote attendees on as equal a footing to in-person attendees as possible. While this isn’t especially difficult technologically, since Zoom handles remote attendees easily, there are nuances that can significantly change the experience for both remote and in-person attendees.
In most events, you may wish to display some or all remote attendees on the screen in the room, for some or all of the event. Having remote attendees on screen can be a valuable reminder to in-person attendees and presenters that there are more participants than those sharing space with them. Exactly how and when to display remote attendees depends on the event. Here are a couple common examples:
- A committee meeting: you may wish to display the remote attendees in gallery view at all times, reinforcing the fact that all committee members are working together, no matter their location. (You can reinforce this ethos by setting up the room to use the rear-facing camera, as described above, to give a sort of “everyone at the conference table” feeling.)
- Presenter Q&A: During a speaker’s presentation it’s typical to display only their content, or if they are not displaying any materials to have the projector entirely blanked. During the Q&A, however, you might bring up the remote attendees, either as a gallery view or by displaying specific speakers in one of Zoom’s other video layouts.
The chat in a Zoom meeting is often remote attendees’ first choice for troubleshooting and requests, so that they can raise issues without overly disrupting the event.
The chat can also be a useful means of inclusion and accommodation. For example:
- If a remote attendee is not able to speak their contribution (a statement in a meeting, a question in a Q&A, etc.), then they can type it in the chat and the presenter or another monitor can voice it.
- If something happens in the room that wouldn’t be clear to remote viewers (e.g., a stack of off-camera books falls over and everyone gasps and laughs), it can be noted in the chat for their benefit it the presenter doesn’t make it clear orally.
In order for any of this to work, though, someone always needs to be monitoring the chat. As always, there are many ways to accomplish this. Here are two endpoints to the spectrum of possibilities:
- For informal, conversational events, it’s often easiest simply to display the chat on the screen in the room. Everyone in the physical space can see it, and can share responsibility for alerting the host to any important notes they may have missed. This also allows in-room attendees to see and share in the backchannel chat conversations that often run alongside the main thread of conversation.
- For formal, presentational events, including the non-Q&A portion of invited speaker talks, chat monitoring often needs to happen on a separate device, with the chat hidden from the screen in order to not be a distraction. A member of the event staff should be signed in on a laptop or phone, able to respond to issues brought up in the chat. (See notes below on using multiple devices.)
No matter how you decide to work with the chat, be clear to remote attendees how you’ll be handling the situation: who to contact with problems, whether the chat is visible to the room, etc. You can do this either via an announcement to the event as a whole or via the chat itself.
Advanced Strategies
Most events will be successful with default Zoom behavior. However, for certain events, especially highly formal or prestigious events, there are a few relatively simple ways to give the event more formal polish while still using the same software.
By default, the in-room computer’s name in Zoom — which displays in the participant list and at the bottom of the Zoom video feed both during the event and in any recordings — will be the name of whoever logged into Zoom on the computer. If that person is the presenter, that’s fine, but if not then it may be helpful to rename the in-room computer for this meeting.
If there is a single presenter, then you might give Zoom the presenter’s name. If there are multiple presenters, or if you wish to make it clear that the video feed belongs less to the presenter than to the event as a whole, then you might give a more organizational name, e.g. “Denney 311” or “Kane Lecture.”
If you have a separate chat monitor or other tech support, you might also have them rename themselves to make it easier for remote attendees to find help, e.g. “Brutus Buckeye — chat monitor” or “Kane Lecture tech support.” These event staff will be more visible to participants if they are also made co-hosts, which will move them to the top of the participant list. (And, depending on security settings, may be necessary for them to rename themselves to begin with.)
(Strictly speaking this isn’t a hybrid matter, since it doesn’t affect the remote viewers at all, but it’s still a nice touch for the in-person experience.)
Typically, when sharing a full-screen presentation, there are still Zoom elements visible: the floating meeting controls and the video panel that shows one or more remote viewers. Additionally, chat messages that come in during the presentation can trigger a preview of the message. All these elements can be disabled for an uncluttered view on screen.
Unfortunately, only the chat previews can be disabled before entering screen share; the video panel and floating meeting controls can only be disabled once a screen share has begun. While it’s certainly possible to do so during a live event, this is easiest to do in formal events where a presentation may be displayed before the event has even begun.
To disable chat previews: in the meeting controls, click on the small area next to the Chat button, then select “Show Chat Previews” to uncheck that option. (There is no obvious sign that there has been a change, but if you click on the arrow again, the menu item will not show a check.)
To disable video panel during screen share, first begin sharing. Then, in the floating meeting controls, click on the three-dot More menu and select Hide Video Panel. To show the video panel again, return to the More menu and select Show Video Panel.
To hide the meeting controls during screen share, first begin sharing. Then, in the floating meeting controls, click on the three-dot More menu and select Hide Floating Meeting Controls. To show the meeting controls again, press Esc.
NB: Sometimes, just after you have hidden the video panel or the floating meeting controls, Zoom does not return focus to PowerPoint, and so the arrow keys/presentation remote will not change the slide. Simply click anywhere on the presentation to return focus.
While we recommend using the built-in computers for the smoothest experience, sometimes it’s necessary to use a personal device for specialty software, etc. Additionally, even when the meeting is hosted on the built-in computers, additional devices may be used for chat monitoring, etc., and there are special considerations for those situations.
Avoiding feedback
When multiple devices in the same space are connected to Zoom audio, it’s common to get a ringing, echoing feedback loop. To avoid this, only one device — typically the host computer —should be connected to audio; all other devices should be disconnected. Muting/turning down the volume is not the same thing as disconnecting from audio. To fully disconnect from audio, click the small arrow next to the Mute button and select Leave Computer Audio. (On mobile devices, the “Disconnect Audio” command is under the More menu.)
Hosting from one device and presenting from another
It’s a little less intuitive, but it is possible to host and present from different computers. Here, the ‘host computer’ is the one running the meeting. This is typically the in-room computer, in order to use the built-in audio equipment.
A speaker may then connect to the meeting on an additional presenting device (disconnected from Zoom audio, as above). Though the device is present in the room, it is essentially a separate remote attendee from a tech standpoint. Depending on your meeting security settings, you will likely need to make this additional device connection a co-host in order share screen from it.
This method is suitable for non-audio sharing, but is imperfect for sharing sound. Even though the additional device is disconnected from Zoom audio, it can still share sound (from video clips etc.) when the Share Sound box is checked. However, depending on the device’s settings it may not be possible to mute the device without muting the outgoing sound, so there may be a slight delay between the audio from the presenting device and the slightly slower display on the main screen, which can be disconcerting.
For certain complex/formal events, it may be advantageous to set up a tech table near the front of Denney 311, along the windows near the AV rack, where a dedicated tech person can sit.
The monitor may be spun around to face the tech person, and the wireless keyboard and mouse can be moved to the table. (Presenters do not need keyboard or mouse to advance slides; they can use the presentation remote.)
From this position, a tech person can control the various systems, including both cameras and the projector via remote.