If you’re looking for ways to spice up your breakout sessions by increasing engagement, and interactivity between attendees and course leaders, consider utilizing these technologies.

Throwable Mics

Adding elements of surprise, fun and interactivity… all while keeping attendees on their toes is an easy task achieved by implementing “throwable mics” into breakout sessions. Think of Popcorn Reading … or a game of catch in a work setting!! This product is incredible for ice breakers, is much more social than a mic stand in the middle of the room and gets individuals speaking that normally wouldn’t, adding valuable insights to your discussions. Catchbox is a brand that we recommend and it can work in ranges up to 300’ for the Pro Option. This interactive tool increases concentration of your attendees and engagement. Did I mention they can be branded with your company logo and colors?!

Presentations In-The-Round

If you have dynamic presenters that you want in the audience building rapport with attendees or collaborating with them in work groups, try presenting in-the-round for breakout sessions! You can take the engaging presentation style that typically is reserved for a General Session into your Breakout Sessions. This type of seating configuration works best in square shaped rooms, as opposed to rectangular.  Rooms with columns or other sight obstructions are also not ideal for this format. Utilize monitors if you want to save on floor space, and if that becomes a budget issue, consider projection. Please consult your AV team when looking to employ this type of session configuration.

Presentation Displays

IMS has written about Sharp Aquos boards before, but their application into breakout rooms can be extremely impactful, allowing both presenters and attendees to interact with a presentation. A Sharp Aquos monitor allows one or multiple users to interact with presentations like a whiteboard at the front of the room, allows up to 50 devices to mirror the presentation, allows presenters to hit the web and pull up multiple sources that they would like to present … it is a completely open platform. Touch Display Link 2.0 gives attendees the ability to provide insights instantaneously on a topic by marking up the presentation or adding a point right from their seats. If 50 devices isn’t enough for your breakout session, consider a single iPad on a tabletop stand so that different work groups collaborate on points and then present them to the group. The monitors come in sizes up to 80”, but if this is too small for your attendance size, ask your AV team to mirror the presentation on larger content screens.

Touch Display Link 2.0 demo, as well as a full capabilities demonstration of the monitors.

Mirroring the presentation onto a larger presentation screen.

Attendee-Generated Content

An idea to consider is generating content created by attendees in breakouts for your general sessions. It is a way to keep attendees on their toes and concentrating, knowing that their ideas could be on the large screens in front of the entire group. Attendees wanting to get noticed, make an impact within the organization or get their name/brand out there will jump through hoops to provide refreshing insights. If you have multiple concurrent breakouts consider making work groups per table, and have each breakout room select the session winner. The winner can upload the presentation or notes to a file-sharing service so that it instantaneously goes to your corporate communications team or your production partner to go-live. You could even have a live video production team scheduled to create video snip-its of the winning presentation groups sharing their solutions or insights. Select the most impactful points, and you have content generated by the attendees on your content screens. To take this a step further, have attendees vote on their favorite take-aways via an audience response system (ARS). Video clips gathered can then be pushed out to social medias, your website, to attendees at large or could be repurposed for marketing next year’s event!

To employ these ideas or others into your next event, please contact your IMS Technology Services Representative or Julie Renninger.

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