Webcasting Now Offered at 50 Venues

The ability to broadcast a product demo from a showfloor or a keynote address live on the Web is nothing new and offering the service at a convention center isn't either. What hasn't been seen before is a deal the size of one struck recently between Smart City and iStreamPlanet to make the service more widespread. According to the agreement, the new partners will offer webcasting at 50 convention centers including two of the three largest, the Las Vegas Convention Center and Orlando's Orange County Convention Center.

Now people just need to use it.

The service has existed at the Connecticut Convention Center, Chicago's McCormick Place and other facilities through different providers, but it's been slow to catch on with customers.

Hartford's Capital City Economic Development Authority, which opened the convention center in 2005, bills the facility as state-of-the-art, offering the latest high-tech amenities. Webcasting has been part of its service menu for a few years now but, according to spokeswoman Katie Blint, even with OC3 high-speed Internet lines available, so far there haven't been any takers. "We haven't found groups that have requested it at this point," she said.

McCormick Place has a similar story. "We do offer (webcasting), and we've offered it since 2003. We streamed an event at that time, but we've had a somewhat limited demand for this," said Mary Kay Marquisos, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which runs McCormick Place.

Mio Babic, iStreamPlanet's president, hopes people will catch on now that more centers will be offering the service. "Three or four years ago, broadband wasn't as available as it is today," he said. "Technology has improved tremendously, and the quality is much better. All the biggest companies have embraced it."

A few years ago, Caterpillar recognized the value of webcasting and hired iStreamPlanet to do a live broadcast unveiling a motorcycle Caterpillar and Orange County Choppers had created together. It was streamed from the showfloor of CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2005 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"We were interested in providing an exceptional presence on the Web in 2005, and we decided to gamble on iStreamPlanet," said Gus Otto, Caterpillar's senior innovation consultant.

IStreamPlanet set up four cameras, and the webcast of the cycle's debut went off without a hitch. "It was overwhelmingly accepted," Otto said. "(Webcasting) is an extremely powerful technology, and we've used it for three years now."

According to Babic, iStreamPlanet has also worked with Intl. CES and CTIA Wireless on their shows, webcasting keynotes or other sessions, as well as exhibitors such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.

In the past, if a company or show wanted to do a webcast, it may have had to use a number of providers. "It can get extremely cumbersome," Babic said. "Now with our new deal with Smart City, all these steps are eliminated, and the process is streamlined."

The service entails an additional fee that ranges between $3,000 and $12,000 depending on the complexity of the project, he added. Show managers can purchase the service and offer it with a fee to their exhibitors, or if the show organizers opt out, exhibitors can buy it directly from Smart City.

"Typically a show manager would buy it for a general session, particularly learning events, for people who can't be there," said David Langford, Smart City's vice president of technology. "Also, larger exhibitors can use it for product demos to expand to a market that's not in their booth."

The OCCC introduced the new service to members of its exhibitor advisory board last week, according to Yulita Osuba, the center's senior director of sales, marketing and event management and exhibitor services.

Webcasting provides exhibitors "an opportunity to give them additional life in their booth," she said. "We're the second-largest convention center in the world, and we're always working with our clients to help them enhance and promote their business."

The Indiana Convention Center & RCA Dome also plans to actively promote the new services to its customers.

"Once (webcasting) becomes known out there and folks become comfortable with it, they will utilize it," said Chris Hayes, the buildings' information technology manager.