Rehearsals

Below are some key areas to work through with the customer or just be aware of. Each event will be slightly different.

Scheduling rehearsals - It is best not to schedule your rehearsals more than a week in advance of the event or Zoom Operator and the client will probably forget the show details or the requirements will change.

In this article:

• Soft Skills
• Review the meeting setup and features
• Presenters
• Meeting Controls
• Polling
• Breakouts
• Green Room
• Webinar

Soft Skills

During the rehearsals, you need to build the customer's confidence by being polite, professional, confident and informed.

Review the meeting setup and features

Review the event requirements, walk the customer through the features and configurations that have been agreed and offer useful advice based on your experience.

Presenters

Encore has a range of useful documents on the Connect site, one of these is a best practice guide for presenters making Zoom calls.

• Top Advice for Presenters
  
  • Present from their day of show device
  • Present from their day of show location
  • Use wired internet
  • Plug your device into power
  • Put your laptop or device at eye level, no one wants to see up your nose.
  • Use headphones to prevent echo or audio feedback
• Operator Checks
  
  • Check if you see and hear everyone
  • Check that screen sharing works for those who are sharing
    

Encore-Live From the Living Room.pdf

Meeting Controls

You should be familiar with all the meeting controls to both operate them and explain them to the customer if needed.

• Main Interface
  
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Closed Captions
  • Sharing Options
  • Recording
  • Streaming (Webinar)
  • Breakouts
  • Spotlighting
  • Pinning
  • Gallery / Speaker View (mention something about use with an external display)
• Participant Panel
  
  • Rename
  • Move
• Chat Panel
  
  • Chat controls
• General Settings

Content Sharing

• If anyone is sharing content, make sure it works
  
  • PowerPoint Slide decks
  • Keynote Slide Decks
  • PDF Slide Decks
  • Website Demo
  • Software Demo
• Determine if the client is sharing slides or we need to share them or have them as a backup. An additional laptop needs to be booked to share the content.
• The additional laptop needs to be logged into the meeting and operated by a venue-provided operator.
• This can also be the venue-provided Zoom operator, but be aware this will add additional complexity to their job.

Polling

• To create polling questions you need to log into the Zoom web interface using your account login details (the customer cannot create the polling questions, it must be done by the account owner).
• Create polling questions prior to the meeting as you may be busy during the meeting.
• It is possible to create polling questions during the meeting if you have time.

Zoom Support: Polling for Meetings

Zoom Support: Polling for Webinars

Breakouts

Breakouts is a feature that allows separate spaces within a meeting.

• Breakouts can be created before the meeting or on the fly.
• Assign participants to breakouts manually (pre-assignment can cause issues)
• Opening breakouts moves everyone who is assigned to a breakout to it.
• Those not assigned are left in the main meeting space.

Zoom Support: Managing Breakout Rooms

Green Room

A "green room" is a theatre or TV term "a room in a theatre or studio in which performers can relax when they are not performing."

To use a green room in a meeting you need to use the breakouts feature to create two rooms, Main Stage and Green Room. You will leave these open all the time and not use the main meeting space.

• Explain how a green room works
• Ask how they would like to use the green room.
• Brief the presenters on how the green room will work.
• You cannot be in both places at once so if the Encore operator is going to be busy in the Main Stage during the show and the customer is not manning the green room, you may need to book an extra operator.

Webinar

Most of the features and controls above apply to webinars too but you will need to be able to explain the differences.

• Explain to the customer how webinars work
• Explain panelists and attendees
• Explain Practice Session (option set when you create the webinar)
• Confirm view controls
• Explain spotlighting (follow host attendee view)
• Confirm what sharing permissions they would like
• Confirm what chat controls they would like
• Confirm Q&A
• Confirm Polling