Aardvark Video coordinates the recording of 60 trade show presentations.
Aardvark Video had a busy month in May 2016. It started with planning and recording panel discussions and presentations in 4 breakout rooms for a conference in Las Vegas. Though an exhibit floor was part of the show plus keynotes, events, and more, the key component was the presentations in the 4 breakout rooms where in each room over 600 people at a time viewed presentations. There were 60 presentations over 2 ½ days.
Our role was to provide the camera crews and also the crew to handle the program recording, which included sources from the camera and anything else such as PowerPoint presentations. Our work was projected on large screens in the rooms for the audience to see. This effort required a crew of 2 people in each room, a file management person, a supervisor and two backup crew-members; in total 12 people.
The onsite AV company came up with a very effective screen arrangement where there were two very large screens in each room; one high above the panel in front and the other high up halfway down the room. This allowed for extended room capacity where the 600+ people at a time in each room had a good view of the presentations.
In addition to providing the footage for the screens, we also were responsible for recording and editing the footage.
The bare minimum of equipment would have been to have the camera equipment recording to internal memory sticks plus a hard drive recorder for the program recording. As with most projects we undertake, we decided to build in redundancy to be certain no footage would be lost. That meant having an additional monitor/hard drive recorder for each camera, a backup hard drive recorder for the 
program recording and also a separate recording for any PPT or other graphic presentations. That came out to 16 hard drive recorders and associated hard drives for the project. To simplify the setup we built rack mount cases for the recording equipment, which included 3 hard drive recorders and all the wiring pre-installed before the show. Each camera was loaded with a 256GB memory stick and a backup 126GB stick. The hard drive recorders had 1TB drives. This storage plan was designed to last the entire show without a need to add new media.
All our equipment was packed in the studio with all the required pieces and then preset with the correct settings on a setup day before the show. The status of each station was monitored throughout the show. Our file management person copied files that would be used for editing from the hard drive recorders to 4TB external hard drives at the end of each day.
A project like this involved months of planning, securing and testing equipment. It also involved writing detailed instructions for the crew-members so that they knew their role.
In addition far in advance of the show, I brought a prototype of the equipment setup we planned to use to the onsite AV company so that we could run a test and check compatibility.
During the show we take notes on any errors in recording or errors made by the presenters and correct these in the editing process.
This is not the type of project for the faint of heart. In addition to our crew there are many other technicians involved. For each room there was a separate person keeping track of time, controlling and guiding panelists on and off of the stages, an audio microphone person to put a wireless mic on each panelist, an audio technician controlling the sound board, a switcher person to switch the source going to the screens and a graphic person controlling the computers with the PowerPoint. To make our end result successful required tactfully working with these additional crew-members to give us the results we needed. To be given the opportunity to manage and help coordinate an event like this requires a great deal of experience, which with nearly 30 years of it, Aardvark Video has.
With our work, the months of preparation and expense that went into the 60 presentations was preserved and can be reviewed.
For something like this we could have even taken it a step further and provided live-streaming, one of our specialties. With live streaming the audience could be expanded to more than could physically attend an event.
If anyone reading this would like to learn more about projects like this we can help you with feel free to browse our website https://AardvarkVideoLasVegas.com or call the studio at 1-702-897-4477 .
Tags: las vegas video company, shoptalk, trade show recordings, trade show video services
Richard DePaso,
That must have been more complicated than a NASA Space Shuttle launch! Nice work. If you ever need a voice over for any of your projects, please check out my voiceguy.com website or give me a call. I’ve been an MCAi/ITVA member since 1992.
Jim Cissell