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Hybrid is not a dirty word – ICC Sydney’s approach to innovation in a world transformed by the pandemic

08 Apr 2022

The need to gather at events never stopped — even throughout the last two years, the demand was there, and the drive to navigate gathering restrictions prompted our team to creatively develop the venue’s hybrid event solutions, leading our industry to provide an end to end, high quality solution, and swiftly bring it to market.

Remaining open to deliver events throughout the pandemic, ICC Sydney successfully delivered a total of 352 events with 200,000 attendees, plus to an additional online audience of at least 200,000 (via 200 in person events, 80 virtual events and 72 hybrid events) during the 2021 financial year.

Fast forward to April 2022, we now have thousands of visitors passing through ICC Sydney’s doors daily again, and a new era has begun. Rather than halting the services that evolved during the pandemic, we enhanced them, giving event organisers the benefit of even more flexibility and increased, integrated services through ICC Sydney’s Connect Hub.

One thing that hasn’t changed over recent years is the world class service delivered for our clients. ICC Sydney’s core team has been upskilled and scaled up, but our exceptionally high service standards remain. Our expert audio visual team takes pride in their work because they are passionate about creating extraordinary events for our valued clients who are embracing the new technology as they get back to meeting face to face.

I am pleased to update you on the full spectrum of Connect Hub services that support clients in today’s operating environment, elevating our industry-leading virtual and hybrid event services.

What is the Connect Hub?
‘Connect Hub’ is a new one stop destination for speakers preparation and digital event solutions.  The integrated service encompasses complex program delivery support via:

  • Hybrid events solutions
  • Onsite speaker preparation,
  • Digital concierge to support remote presenters
  • ICC Sydney Connect event platform
  • A dedicated broadcast studio
  • Edit suite
  • Digital signage management.

Connect Hub is a true end-to-end solution for managing all events, be it face to face, virtual or a hybrid of the two.

Commitment to innovation and anticipating needs
We have continued to evolve our services for clients not only in response to event needs, but anticipating needs as things change and progress.  ICC Sydney’s approach to make constant small improvements is ingrained in our corporate DNA, and the emergence of Connect Hub is a direct result of our commitment to this philosophy.

This approach to innovation saw ICC Sydney open in December 2016 with a stand-alone purpose built face to face speakers preparation centre, which then evolved to include many other event enhancement services, such as the digital signage service to help our clients signpost and promote their events on internal and outdoor signage.

The installation of two large LED screens in the Convention Centre foyers, on the Ground Floor and outside The Gallery on Level Two, gave us the ability to enhance the creative content and apply it to a much larger, more impactful digital canvas — delivering more than the functional, directional signage requirements.

From here, the video edit suite was installed. This service helped our clients with content creation, filming events and creating highlight reels that can be used in pre and post event promotion.