Case study
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Case study: TEDxSydney 2020 Amid the restrictions and roadblocks of 2020, TEDxSydney was yet another event forced to reinvent itself in order to go ahead.
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s a world-renowned platform for curating ideas and innovation, TEDxSydney traditionally draws in eager crowds by the thousands, to meet in person and watch powerful talks by a diverse range of speakers. Slated for May 2020, TEDxSydney looked to event and brand agency INVNT to design and produce its flagship in-person event for an audience of 5,000 for the third consecutive year, however COVID-19 had other plans.
The brief Like many events taking place in the first half of 2020, the initial plan was to postpone until the COVID-19 situation eased. “In the first instance, INVNT worked closely with TEDxSydney to postpone the event – liaising with venues, caterers, technical directors and other vendors – to 6 November 2020, at a time when an inperson event may have still been feasible,” explains Laura Roberts, managing director at INVNT APAC. As the pandemic unfolded, the team at TEDxSydney decided to take the event online for the first time, with a goal to stay true to its mission and core focus: content and community. 50 Spice Autumn 2021
“TEDxSydney tasked INVNT with supporting the four main stage sessions live from a studio in Sydney, and ensuring its community had an interesting and exciting place to virtually ‘go to’ outside of these sessions,” says Roberts.
The event An event like TEDxSydney called for more than your average Zoom-based conference with presenters streaming from their living rooms. Instead, INVNT took the event to a Sydney studio, where a full-scale production could be executed. “We streamed live from a big and beautiful studio in Sydney using eight cameras, lights and all manner of creative and technical wizardry – it was a major production,” says Remo Giuffré, founder and licensee of TEDxSydney. Most speakers presented live in the studio across four main stages, which were streamed via virtual event platform Jomablue. Speakers and performers included Atlassian's Dominic Price, tennis champion Daria ‘Dasha’ Gavrilova and Australian Indigenous singer-songwriter Emma Donovan. Each session had capacity for 22 socially distanced audience members, while a virtual ‘wall of faces’ was
3 1. The main stage at TEDxSydney 2. Vocalist Emma Donovan performing on the main stage 3. TEDxSydney main stage with the 'wall of faces' 4. B ehind the scenes at the INVNT studio 5. Atlassian's Dominic Price speaking at the event