Coming together regardless of restrictions – Baby Bunting Awards go fully immersive
Prior to 2020 Baby Bunting hosted an annual face-to-face conference and awards celebration for staff nationally. Amidst the height of national lockdowns, the company hosted a virtual business update and awards event via Webex. Following this experience, it was decided… ‘never again – we need more!’.
Brief:
As 2021 continued to pose challenges with lockdowns across the eastern states, Baby Bunting engaged Peanut Productions to provide a dynamic and exciting online solution for their annual event.
Overview:
With interactive engagement being essential to the event’s success, we immediately recommended the fully immersive platform. This platform creates a ground-breaking virtual environment that allows guests (no matter where they are globally) to interact in live time as if they were at an in- person event. This is not limited to only the formal event period but also being able to do normal things we previously taken for granted such as walking over to a friend to say hello, as well as getting a photo taken with a colleague at a table.
We designed a graphical event space that not only hosted the formal agenda of the evening, but allowed guests to virtually table hop throughout the night to network, and of course have their picture virtually taken.
The event was broadcast live from the Baby Bunting Head Office, where the Peanut team had transformed the company’s café hub into a full studio. This setup included green screen, broadcast equipment, lighting, hard wired internet and a team of technicians. In a Covid safe environment over 10 senior leaders presented awards live from head office, whilst all finalists were brought to the virtual stage via video, with winners given the opportunity to speak.
While this seems straightforward in a face-to-face setting, the technicalities of the event cannot be understated for a multi layered virtual event. We had overall control of computer elements common to a virtual environment. Guests didn’t have to turn their mute button or microphone on and off, nor fiddle with the screen, as this was all controlled by the Peanut team. This made the night for our clients and their guests as normal, fluid, and easy as possible whilst also highlighting how far virtual event solutions have come in the past 18 months.
To add to the event, a lip synch battle was filmed between two senior leaders on the morning of the event and our team edited the clip over the course of the day ready, to play live during the event. Utilising the Mentimeter app, we conducted voting for the lip synch challenge as well conducting a best dressed competition.
Outcome:
In a locked down environment finding a way to engage and connect with an audience is a challenge. Despite perceived difficulties, the event was a huge success with one of the highest net scores of any Baby Bunting event, with networking on the platform continuing well into the evening following the formalities.
