FESTO Virtual Exhibition, July 2020 in Esslingen

"Smart. Flexible. Digital." was the slogan for the first "Festo Virtual Exhibition". The event was held in the middle of July 2020 in Esslingen, where the world's leading vendor of automation systems and technical education has its corporate headquarters. Visitors were able to experience a vivid presentation of Festo's entire range of diverse products on the virtual trade fair booth. From vocational training and engineering through to plant operation, the enterprise set new impulses for factory and process automation. Visitors also learnt about the new opportunities offered by collaborative robotics in the working environment of the future and how customers can boost their energy efficiency with smart products.

A 350 m² booth was constructed for the streaming event on the company's own premises in Esslingen, thus providing the setting for the presentations, each of which was broadcast live in two parallel 15-minute sessions. This worldwide stream – which could also be viewed in China and therefore presented a particularly complex challenge – was realised by Festo's IT team together with N&M's partner "3Q" and the Chinese company Alibaba. The individual sessions were moderated by Festo employees in German, English, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. Afterwards, visitors could ask questions by means of a chat function.

The Digital Live Event was preceded by detailed planning; we were responsible for the control room, camera, audio and additional lighting as well as for the show flow, the video clips and the worldwide stream. This involved setting up two separate video control units to realise simultaneous streaming of two parallel transmissions throughout the whole day. Four wireless cameras gave us sufficient flexibility to effectively capture the dynamic presentation, which sometimes incorporated the entire booth. Between the individual sessions, we implemented appropriate hygiene measures to ensure compliance with the rules aimed at containing the corona pandemic.

Close consultation with the client and between partners right from the planning stage guaranteed the smooth running of the Digital Live Event, which had been preceded by trial set-ups to ensure additional reliability. 17,000 visitors had registered for the Virtual Exhibition; 33,000 viewers followed the event live, accessing the trade fair documents provided for download 70,000 times.