While audience participation is a critical aspect of any effective and engaging virtual meeting or event, it’s important for event managers to properly vet and prepare guest speakers for panels or live Q&As to protect their event’s integrity and brand image. To help solve this challenge, virtual events company GlobalMeet recently launched Centerstage, a platform for virtually handling and screening guest speakers during digital events, such as investor meetings, town halls, internal HR meetings and more.

With this new feature, pre-selected speakers or audience members can be promoted to a virtual event’s main stage from within a controlled “backstage” greenroom environment, overseen by an experienced event producer who vets guests and conducts pre-checks before putting anyone live into a meeting to ask a question. 

This allows the producer to catch any potential audio or video issues, no-shows or disruptive individuals before they reach the main stage. At the same time, guest speakers will feel relaxed and prepared to ask questions or contribute to an ongoing discussion. 

How it works

Centerstage allows for increased engagement during digital events while minimizing the risk of unexpected disruptions, allowing event teams to remain in control of event messaging while providing audience members with a more active and collaborative role, according to GlobalMeet officials. 

“GlobalMeet prioritizes eliminating friction throughout every aspect of a virtual event for the best possible experience, and this new professional service feature elevates audience engagement to new heights,” said Michele Dobnikar, president of Global Meet, which produces and hosts thousands of virtual and hybrid events annually for a variety of industries. 

She continued, “Audience collaboration and brand perception are crucial for a virtual event’s success. Our expert operators now have the power to provide that participation smoothly, allowing special guests to provide their thoughts during a live event to add context to a discussed topic or to simply ask questions and have them answered live.”  

With the Centerstage platform, event producers are able to remain in control of their meetings, minimizing the risk of bad surprises or events gone awry while giving a more active voice to audience members. This enhances audience engagement, adds energy to the presentation and shines a spotlight on the audience, not just the presenters, Dobnikar added.

GlobalMeet is a scalable, flexible and secure event solution built and backed by event professionals with extensive experience facilitating engaging and accessible virtual and hybrid events. The customizable browser-based solution allows audiences to interact via Q&A chats, surveys, polling, testing and certification, dynamic layouts and social media interactive features.

Have some event technology news to share? Please send announcements and high-resolution imagery to lpsavas@tsnn.com and dtormohlen@tsnn.com.

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