OBJECTIVE
The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) is a non-profit association that works to preserve the built environment, including historic neighborhoods and buildings.
Their annual “Past Forward” national conference seeks to build a strong community around the preservation of diverse and fascinating place of historical significance. Members who work to protect cultural places and landmarks come each year for a highly immersive, interactive experience that focuses on learning and networking.
“I can’t stress enough how much I rely on Seamless Event’s expertise and their sincere commitment to our conference to produce high-quality visual presentations and to really bring a high level of customer service that has not gone unnoticed by everyone from our speakers to our executive staff.”
Director, PastForward Conference at NTHP
OUR APPROACH
Audio Visual plays a critical role at their conference in building excitement around historical preservation. Since 2005 Seamless Events has been their AV production partner developing lighting schemes that highlight in-room architectural elements to surprise and delight attendees, while simultaneously creating an environment that supports learning and connection.
“We were so hesitant to commit to a virtual conference. Production value is really important to us. Being the National Trust for Historic Preservation means that we need to show we know what we’re doing. If we were to have a glitchy presentation or it did not look polished in some way, attendees would lose faith in us being a thoughtful and forward organization.
In the end, unanimously from our attendees, to our board, to my supervisors, everyone was really pleased with the outcome.”
Director, PastForward Conference at NTHP
The Pivot to Virtual
When the pandemic struck, NTHP pivoted their annual in-person conference to a virtual three-day event, despite some initial concerns. They decided to pre-record 50% of their presentations and go live with the other 50%. Seamless helped pre-record and edit their presentations into picture-in-picture finished video. We also supported them with learning and understanding the production requirements of their new event software platform, and provided day-of technical support for the sessions.
WATCH A SESSION:
THE RESULT
After 15 years of partnership, NTHP and Seamless took on a new challenge: the organization’s first virtual conference. Both teams were determined to continue the organization’s impressive track record of reinvigorating attendees’ commitment to historic preservation.
Attendance More Than Doubled
Over 4000 remote attendees participated in PastForward 2020. For context, their typical in-person conference generally has 1500 attendees.
Happy Stakeholders
Attendees, the NTHP board, and NTHP leaders were overwhelmingly pleased with the outcome of their first virtual event. After considering logistics and attendee feedback, PastForward will once again be virtual in 2021.
Virtual Event Best Practices
from NTHP:
- Dedicated a large number of staff to event planning
- Worked to create highly relevant content that met best practices in terms of length (approximately 40 minutes per session)
- Prioritized audience participation via live post-presentation Q&A (chats) and polling to build a sense of community
- Assigned a dedicated Host/Administrator for every call on every track; these hosts each partnered with 1 Seamless technician
- Extended the days the conference ran, but shortening hours to maximize “normal working hour participation” across time zones
OTHER HELPFUL CONTENT:
Laurel Miller / 3 June 2021
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