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InfoComm2011 June 15–17, Orange County Convention Center, Orlando ATTENDED BY MORE THAN 33,000 PROFESSIONALS IN THE AUDIOVISUAL, INFORMATION-COMMUNICATIONS, AND SYSTEMS-INTEGRATION INDUSTRIES

Misaligned projectors, poor screen resolution, badly cali- brated audio, and other AV screw-ups are just a few of the things attendees did not experience at InfoComm 2011. Billing itself as “the most energizing audiovisual gathering in the world,” InfoComm is staged by AV industry association Info- Comm International—and a lot of what the association does, according to Senior Vice President of Exhibi- tions Jason McGraw, “really tends to follow our own standards and best practices that we have developed for the industry.” The No. 1 thing that InfoComm does to

make sure its own AV is top-notchis to devote sufficient time to room set-up and speaker prep. Working with its AV supplier, Freeman, and the meeting venue, InfoComm produces CAD diagrams for eachsession room, so it can ensure it has the appropriate screen size and viewing distance from the seating area. Meeting planners shouldn’t underestimate

the importance of rehearsal time, especially if speakers are non-professionals or volunteers. “Using a teleprompter is not as easy as it seems; it requires a bit of practice,” McGraw said. “Going through the presentations with the presenters and also coordinating the tech- nical flow is very important to having a successful presentation.” Depending on the size of the room and the AV needs of the

presenter, you may not need to have a high-def projector if speakers are going to be showing fairly low-res PowerPoint presentations. “In fact, for some small

UP, UP,AND AV!: InfoComm International hosts a series ofAV boot camps for meeting planners, called “Power ofAV.” To find out when the next program near you is happening, visitwww.powerofav.com.

meetings in smaller rooms, the large flat-panel, direct-view dis- play, like a plasma or LCD [screen] that is 60 inches or 70 inches, might be adequate,” McGraw said. And these displays are typically less expensive than full projection set-ups. One way to simultaneously reduce AV expenditures and

guarantee that speakers are provided with the most ideal configuration for their presentation is to figure out which pre- senters will have heavy AV needs, and then schedule those sessions sequentially in a small number of rooms, rather than spreading them out across many different rooms. McGraw said: “Not every presenter is going to have to use Internet and/or have video playback.” Of course, many speakers these days do have high-band- widthAV requirements. If content is meant to be streamed

from the Internet, you have to make sure that the facility has an Internet connection that is robust enough to handle such demands. Otherwise, you may need to encourage speakers to download their video content onto their own computer or another playback device. “We work very closely with our in-house IT provider and

AV supplier to make sure we have big connectivity in the meeting rooms where we need to,” McGraw said, “for show- ing video and content from the web.”

—Hunter R. Slaton

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.infocommshow.org