We were thrilled to hear we have received funding thanks to the government’s #CultureRecoveryFund so that we can continue to be here for you and #HereForCulture right now in the virtual world and very soon at in-person events too.

Culture creates jobs, supports livelihoods, and brings joy to everyone. The UK leads the world in the creative industries and we can all feel pride in that.

Now, in these challenging times, it’s our turn to show our support for culture. With an unprecedented investment through the Culture Recovery Fund, the government is #HereForCulture so it can weather the storm of coronavirus and come back stronger.

And we are #HereForCulture too.

#HereForCulture is a movement that unites the public, government and cultural organisations in support of our fantastic cinemas, theatres, music venues, museums, galleries and heritage.

With more and more culture being curated online, there is no better time to support and enjoy all the new and exciting ways culture is available to us.

By being #HereForCulture, we aren’t just supporting the people in the industry, we’re also supporting communities across the country.

Manchester Central is preparing to install a self-contained production studio at the leading conference and events venue.

Set to be the first of its kind in the heart of the city centre, Studio at Manchester Central will offer TV broadcast-quality production facilities to help businesses professionally communicate to and engage their audiences virtually, or as an enhanced hybrid component to a live event. Delivered with Sterling Event Group, Studio will feature a fully integrated set with customisable LED backdrops, lighting, full audio and vision equipment and an expert crew to create professional and engaging output.

The venue’s unrivalled internet connectivity – the result of a stand-alone fibre network that ensures no interruption of service and guaranteed speeds of 10,000Mbps – means that content can be live-streamed to thousands or recorded and edited for future distribution.

Housed within the Cobden Rooms and accessible via its own dedicated entrance, Studio can be used entirely standalone, or integrated into a live event footprint. Green room and dressing room space is provided for presenters, as well as a full catering and hospitality offer; all managed in accordance with COVID-Secure guidelines.

 Hair and make-up support can be pre-booked, along with TV presenter coaching delivered by Manchester Actor’s Platform (the education arm of 53two) for anyone looking to hone their presenter skills.

Shaun Hinds, Chief Executive at Manchester Central said: “We’re incredibly excited to launch Studio at Manchester Central. Following the launch of our ‘Live from the Auditorium’ hybrid solution last year, we believe that there will be a place for professional, virtual content creation and production as we move towards the new era of events.

 The Government’s roadmap to recovery set out earlier this week is a real positive step forward and we can’t wait to be ‘back in the room’ again. We have an opportunity now to take what we’ve learned from the world of virtual communications over the past year and apply it to the live event format, as well as wider business engagement strategies.

 When done well, we’ve seen how technologies can grow reach and brand exposure exponentially and by integrating this component into event and engagement programmes, we can create immersive and curated content for audiences, wherever they are. Studio is the perfect platform from which to do that.”

Richard Bowden, Managing Director at Sterling Event Group adds: “We anticipate that virtual events will become a permanent feature in the calendars of many organisations, and we are delighted to be working with the team at Manchester Central to bring a high-specification facility to the heart of the city. Studio will be fully equipped to deliver live and pre-recorded virtual content as a standalone event, or to extend the reach and add a digital element to a live event when restrictions permit.”

For more information about Studio at Manchester Central and to pre-book, visit www.manchestercentral.co.uk/Studio or contact the team on Studio@manchestercentral.co.uk

After COVID kicked occupancy rates off a cliff, INNSiDE Manchester was among the first hotels to lead the transformation of disused event spaces into production studios. The Meliá hotel partnered with AV supplier Sterling Event Group to install a stage floor ringed with multiple cameras and a professional audio and lighting system, backed by a HD laser projection screen alongside two 65-inch LCDs for branded content, all controlled by a live stream production suite.

“We used to host live conferences with 300 delegates in the space,” says Scott Brown, INNSiDE’s Cluster Director of Sales in the north. “We can now host that as a virtual event with just 30 people on-site, but another 300 attendees dialling in remotely.

“It wouldn’t be practical for us to house tens of thousands of pounds of kit on an ongoing basis. But because of the size of the space, and the fact we don’t foresee hosting large-scale events for the next six months, it works for us right now while AV suppliers are sat with unused kit in their warehouses. Meliá already offers a hybrid solution, but the difference with INNSiDE Live is it alleviates a lot of the setup and breakdown expenses, making it a really cost-effective solution for clients.”

A year into the pandemic and organisers are increasingly conscious of broadcast quality. Performing Artistes is one of the many agencies racing to invest in professional studio equipment in response to the mounting dissatisfaction of virtual attendees, fed up with low quality webcam footage: “It’s about creating the right impression for your audience,” says Director JJ Jackson. “Having your keynote slumped behind your webcam – with at best a bookshelf and at worst your washing drying in the background – is no longer good enough, especially if clients are paying thousands of pounds. Events agencies have to invest in a decent webcam, lighting and backdrops at the very least, and ideally a multi-camera setup with a little mixer so you can slickly switch between them. We’ve invested in professional lighting and high-definition cameras in our office – it’s a great halfway house between expensive studio rental and having speakers present at home.”

However, Richard Bowden, MD of Sterling Event Group, argues it’s not necessarily the equipment that counts, but the expertise behind it: “There’s a place for in-house studio setups, using venue furniture in a nice location with very simple production. But in the live events market, conferences attended by hundreds of delegates would always see the expertise of a professional AV company – and it shouldn’t be any different with virtual events.

“It’s not just about investing in a broadcast-quality cameras; there are hundreds of pieces of kit behind the scenes that all work together to deliver a virtual event. Having that equipment infrastructure in a safe, suitable place and a core team who know how to use it allows you to deliver events that look more like a television production and less like a Zoom call.”

Kevan Holland, Co-founder of Trident Hospitality Consultancy believes one of the biggest challenges in proper AV investment for virtual events is a lack of knowledge across the industry: “Some of the AV companies who are putting the platforms together are coming across with so much jargon that it’s hard to sell their product onto clients. Our members who work with AV companies to offer hybrid events solutions report their clients are reluctant to pay thousands of pounds to connect 100 people via a platform, when Zoom is virtually free – they don’t actually understand the logistics of how virtual works. It’s fine if you’re a big association, but for the average small to medium size company, it’s hard to swallow some of the costs.”

Trident member Vicky Webb, Venue and Events Manager at Millennium Point, says it has been a priority to ensure her events team are trained to understand the technical aspects of virtual events: “It’s our job to match people with the right solution. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a techie – that’s why I have an AV technician on hand. Clients often don’t understand what they want and it’s up to us to have the knowledge as a sales team to direct them towards what they need and help them understand the cost implications.”

“Not every client is going to have the budget associated with a primetime TV show,” accepts Richard. “How we think about screen content is different for virtual events. AV teams can remotely manage events and achieve some of those production values digitally, combining webcam feeds with professional graphics and pre-recorded content.”

As to exactly what’s possibly right now, Richard is witnessing change on a weekly basis as the pandemic pushes virtual event AV to its limits: “The whole industry is developing so rapidly right now, seeking the advice of a professional production company who can share the pros and cons of using different platforms has never been more valuable. If your platform isn’t right or the interaction doesn’t work in the way that you were hoping, it could mean the difference between a successful event and a PR disaster.”

Virtual Vision

INNSiDE Manchester, part of Meliá Hotels International, has partnered with one of the UK’s leading technical event production and AV hire companies, Sterling Event Group to launch Manchester’s first virtual event production studio in a hotel.

Installed and ready to be booked as and when Government guidelines permit, ‘INNSiDE LiVE’, at INNSiDE Manchester, is a virtual event solution that features a state-of-the-art studio setting, offering a live streaming experience, designed to facilitate a virtual or hybrid event.

A first for a Manchester city-centre hotel, Sterling Event Group has taken over part of the self-contained event space to provide a creative technical studio production that enables businesses to engage, communicate and inspire employees, suppliers, clients and stakeholders by combining cutting edge technologies and expertise to create live, virtual and hybrid events. The set features a central rear projection screen with HD laser projection, 2 x 65 Inch screens for custom logos and content, brandable backdrop, stage floor, multiple cameras, live stream production suite and a professional audio and lighting system – plus more.

The COVID-safe space, set within the eclectic home-from-home leisure hotel’s Chadwick meeting room space, allows companies to hire out and to host live audiences at the venue, in line with current Government restrictions, whilst streaming professional, broadcast-quality content in real-time; engaging, entertaining and communicating with audiences wherever they are across the globe. Content can be streamed to Zoom, YouTube, Facebook and more. Alternatively, it can be pre-recorded ready for broadcast at a later date.

The live studio experience is supported by INNSiDE Manchester’s experienced in-house events team and the expert production crew at Sterling Event Group, who will be on hand to ensure all studio events run smoothly and safely from start to finish.

Commenting on the virtual studio collaboration, INNSiDE UK North, Cluster Director of Sales Scott Brown said: “INNSiDE LiVE is a new state-of-the-art hybrid event studio, that allows us to deliver a top-class event production facility, in a safe, dedicated space at INNSiDE Manchester.”

“With this facility staying in place for the next six months we have been able to offer a cost-effective solution that doesn’t require the usual set up and break down costs, meaning this is accessible for everything from an online conference or awards event to company briefing or online training day.”

“As and when events can return to what they were, on larger scale, this studio offering will only add to the experience; allowing organisers to reach a much larger delegate audience – both within the UK and globally.”

Dan Estcourt, Technical Manager at Sterling Event Group said, this is a great solution for event organisers as it works equally as well with a fully virtual audience as it does with a hybrid audience allowing them to plan with confidence.

Contact the team today to discuss this new space and your next virtual event.

Sterling Event Group are pleased to announce the renewal of their Safe Contractor accreditation.

This highly respected accreditation recognises that they are fully competent and operating to the highest of health & safety procedures which meet all industry standards. Something that is paramount more than ever now within the live events industry.

Contact the team today to see how they can help with Virtual Events.

Sterling Event Group have expanded their virtual event space – Sterling Studio. Launched in March, the original Sterling Studio has proved popular with agencies and clients alike and due to client requirements their offering has now been expanded to include a number of new spaces and packages, which incorporate everything you would need from a venue for your event and a trustworthy AV setup.

• STUDIO A

Purpose built studio facility, based around an impressive 11.5m wide curved high resolution LED screen as a digital backdrop, offering the ability to create bespoke settings for every event.

• STUDIO B

A smaller yet highly flexible studio with a central LED screen digital backdrop, twin side screens and colour changeable set lighting, this facility offers a professional setting for a wide range of presentations.

• STUDIO +

This solution is the hire of Studios A&B together. It allows for breakout space cuts or for different segments of an event such as a keynote address then a fireside chat.

• STUDIO LITE

A smaller alternative, suited for a single person delivering content to camera. With a 2.5m x 2.5m digital LED backdrop for bespoke content, along with one 55inch screen set to the side. Basic AV setup included.

• VIRTUAL CONTROL CENTRES

Not all events may require or be able to have presenters live from the Studio spaces, for example presenters based overseas or in locations with restrictions or limitations. This solution offers a more slick produced event than a simple zoom call. With the ability to overlay webcam feeds, and manipulate layouts, your virtual event can benefit from a professional look. Presenter kits can be sent out to increase quality where required.

The Studio spaces also house two purpose built dressing room spaces along with a waiting area with seating and refreshments, available for speakers and organisers to hire separately ahead of their studio time. Beyond the Studios, Sterling can also support with a variety of additional services such as live stream hosting, custom event website builds, registration platforms and audience engagement tools.

Contact the team today to discuss your next Virtual Event.

Manchester Central and Sterling Event Group have teamed up to launch “Live from the Auditorium”, a virtual event solution that provides an interactive live streaming experience from a professional studio setting.

Unique to the city centre and housed within Manchester Central’s purpose-built 800-seat Auditorium, a self-contained event space within the venue’s Exchange Suite, the solution is designed to facilitate a virtual or hybrid event.

The venue’s COVID-secure space allows businesses to host a small live audience at the venue, in line with current Government restrictions, whilst streaming professional, broadcast-quality content in real-time; engaging, entertaining and communicating with audiences wherever they are across the globe. Alternatively, content can be pre-recorded ready for broadcast at a later date.

The live studio experience is supported by Manchester Central’s experienced in-house events team and the expert production crew at Sterling Event Group, who will be on hand to ensure everything runs smoothly and safely from beginning to end.

Shaun Hinds, Chief Executive at Manchester Central said: “We’re really excited about the launch of our new “Live from the Auditorium” experience. During these extraordinary times, we believe it is even more vital for businesses to continue to communicate and engage with employees, customers and peers, and this experience offers them the opportunity to do just that from a ‘live’ studio setting, creating a fun, slick and professional virtual experience.

“The studio package includes sound, lighting, screens and live camera systems, all operated by a dedicated events and production team, providing clients with the reassurance that their live broadcast will be of the highest quality, will be engaging and will run smoothly from start to finish – eliminating the risk of technical difficulties that are, more often than not, experienced during video calls!

“It’s the perfect way to bring people together to learn and do business in a time when, unfortunately, the events we know and love can’t take place.

“We’re delighted to offer an alternative solution at a time when live event capacities are limited, and we’re confident that this virtual solution will be a great addition to our live event services going forward.”

Richard Bowden, Managing Director at Sterling Event Group said: “We are delighted to partner with Manchester Central to offer a turnkey solution that enables event organisers the opportunity to deliver slick and engaging virtual or hybrid events.

“The purpose-built auditorium offers immense flexibility from a production perspective allowing us to facilitate a wide range of presentation styles and set designs.”

For more information about this experience at Manchester Central and how the live broadcast solution can integrate with your existing virtual platforms, please visit www.manchestercentral.co.uk/live-auditorium or click here.

Technical event production company Sterling Event Group has created Sterling Studio, a Manchester-based studio space designed to boost the production value of webinars and other virtual events, over video conferencing and online meeting platforms such as Zoom, Go To Meeting, Skype and WebEx. The studio, supported by UK distributor PSCo, boasts a digital backdrop from LED display manufacturer Absen.

The idea to create a studio dedicated to virtual events came before the Covid-19 lockdown, just as the need for an events space with the capacity for high production quality was rising – a need that has only increased since.

“The studio space allows us to use our rental equipment and create a space for users to virtually present to their audience using state-of-the-art technologies, without the obvious limitations that come with presenting from home,” said Dan Charmer, director of Sterling Event Group. This facility is also a fantastic tool for companies who don’t want to invest in, or have the required space or equipment to record and broadcast such presentations.

The 230sqm black box space offers features designed not only to provide presenters with creative freedom, but also to maintain current UK social distancing requirements. The space boasts an 11m wide stage, along with a 3.6m circular podium where presenters can easily maintain the appropriate social distance, fully kitted with a professional lighting and audio system, including digital mixing consoles and stage monitor speakers.

Snaking around the back of the stage is a 16 x 3 metre curved LED screen providing a dynamic backdrop to set the scene for any event. The screen is made up of Absen’s Polaris 2.5mm Pro – part of the multi-award-winning Polaris rental series – which has been specifically created for indoor use, offering 1200 nits high brightness, superior contrast and high precision pixel alignment. The screen is well suited for a multitude of uses, such as Sterling Studio, which uses the LED screen to simultaneously display presentations, social media feeds, branding and custom backgrounds in sharp 18bit+ image processing.

“The screen is paramount to the studio: the sharpness and contrast of the image are key elements to the impact we were looking to create,” commented Charmer. “The Polaris series offers what we need for this project mechanically and, more importantly, visually over our existing [Absen] A3 Pro. The compatibility of the hardware across the range was also a big advantage when adding it to the rental fleet.”

The Polaris 2.5mm Pro panels feature an integrated curved locking system, allowing for convex (-7.5˚) or concave (+10˚) shapes to be modelled as needed to further improve the striking visual effect, as well as round, square or triangle panel shapes. The 9.6kg model also boasts simple and quick assembly, something which Charmer and his team used to their advantage.

“A small team of technicians installed the screen without any help or guidance, and found it to be a simple, stress-free installation,” Charmer said.

The screen is driven by Avolites Ai Media servers, which provide large format backdrops for use during virtual events. All signals are routed through a Barco E2 switching system, which is also routing content down to four 65-inch stage monitors within the studio space, made available to the presenters and their team. These are thoroughly cleaned after every use, along with the other equipment available.

“We wanted to create a safe, hygienic space that encompassed the high production value and set design, whilst ensuring the opportunity for engagement with audiences for our clients in a more visually impactful way,” Charmer said. “We do not know what the future holds, but for now we know we have provided the standard our clients have come to expect from us with the assistance of PSCo and Absen.”

With the ever-changing climate and increasing uncertainty as to when we might be able to resume ‘business as usual’ we are all having to adjust the ways we work to organise and execute live events. Whether it be a company ‘meeting’ or a full-scale event with key note speakers; now more than ever we are seeking out alternative ways to deliver events without compromising on quality, creativity and those wow moments.

Whilst the rise in use of Webex and Zoom has enabled us to continue to conduct meetings and smaller scale presentations from the comfort of our own homes, we understand that this may not quite achieve the audience engagement and production quality as desired.

With this in mind we have drawn upon our 20 years of expertise and knowledge and carefully curated a portfolio of new virtual event solutions to ensure that the show can still go on. Our star of the show is a project we started before lockdown where we combined our very best technology with our industry expertise to craft a high spec studio space. We are now very proud and excited to open the doors and welcome you all to Sterling Studio!

“Our offering includes three levels of studio so should suit most requirements and budgets and there are many ways in which we can customise to meet a client’s requirement. This combined with our customisable web platforms allows us to provide a really strong, comprehensive virtual offering and we are really excited to be supporting a range of events in the coming months” Richard Bowden, Founder and MD.

Our most comprehensive offering, The Sterling Studio+ is kitted out with an impressive 16m x 3m Absen Polaris 2.5mm LED screen as a curved digital backdrop; allowing for unique and engaging combinations of live streaming, creative graphics and pre-recorded content simultaneously. The setup is further enhanced by the Panasonic 65” presenter comfort monitors, Panasonic PTZ remote cameras, a sophisticated Barco E2 screen management system, Yamaha QL1 digital mixer and lighting delivered via the Avolites Tiger Touch II.

The Studios can be customized and designed to suit any event; with the spaces large enough to host awards ceremonies, festivals and key note speakers, to company conferences and charity nights.

Furthermore, not only have we been busy creating Sterling Studio, but we have also been consolidating our virtual event solutions to ensure you can continue to run your events (albeit virtually) with as much style and creativity as your audience would demand from any live event. We can assist in virtual event production from alternative venues, provide support and guidance on how to infuse ingenuity and engagement into your virtual event and even add new dimensions that may not have been previously considered. We understand that adding anything from live streaming and additional content creation to audience engagement tools and pre-recorded content to your event can dramatically improve the engagement and audience experience, and so are poised and ready to help.

We also appreciate that during these times health, safety and wellbeing are of utmost importance and so we have taken all appropriate safety measures to ensure that hosting an event at Sterling Studio does not compromise this.

If you are interested in hosting your next event at Sterling Studio, or simply exploring the ways in which you can virtualise your event, make sure to get in touch with our friendly team of experts today! Or visit our Sterling Studio website to learn more about how it can work for your next event.

We look forward to welcoming you to Sterling Studio!

Sterling Event Group offer a wide range of solutions for events including Live Streaming, Webcasting and other virtual solutions.

Recent events we have delivered range from conferences, product launches through to funerals.

In the current climate, more and more people are turning to digital solutions to hold their event and we have the capability and a wide range of options available to engage your audience including live voting and Q&A.

We can provide simple packages through to TV studio style live broadcasts.

Contact the team today who’ll be more than happy to talk you through the options available and help you find the most suitable solution for your next event.