2023年11月13日読了時間: 4分

Swiss Embassy in Japan: Relieved From the Technical Burden

更新日：7月12日

Learn how the Switzerland embassy in Japan used the Audiovisual Solution service by LIFE.14 to secure the success of their first post-pandemic on-site forum.

Client

Industry: governmental organization

Location: Japan, Tokyo

The Switzerland embassy in Japan is the main official organization representing Switzerland in Japan. It covers diplomatic relations between the two countries, political, economic, financial interests of Swiss, and legal arrangements. The Switzerland embassy in Japan also supports scientific, educational, and cultural ties between the countries.

Challenge

Event: Switzerland–Japan Economic Forum 2023

Competitiveness and Innovation: The Next Frontiers for Industry-Academia Collaboration by Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Japan

Event format: On-site

When: 2 October, 2023, 2 hours

Venue: Tokyo Midtown Hall B (Roppongi)

Scale: audience of 200 attendees including governmental, business, and academic leaders from Switzerland and Japan.

LIFE.14 Services

1/ Audiovisual Solution
- Screen and sound management
- Full Event Video-recording
2/ Highlight Videography

Event With No Headroom For Failure

Holding a large-scale on-site event in Japan “Switzerland–Japan Economic Forum 2023”, the Swiss embassy in Japan aimed to gather leaders of government, business, and the academic world to facilitate discussion for international industry-academia collaboration, as a primary goal. At the same time, the event was also a historical mark of getting back to normal activity for the embassy, as it was the first large official offline event of the organization since the end of COVID-19 pandemic.

During the pandemic, the Swiss embassy in Japan had been relying on online and hybrid events to maintain its communication with the communities. This was the time when LIFE.14 was in charge of their live-stream videography and event facilitation.

Organizing the “Switzerland–Japan Economic Forum 2023” the Swiss embassy team put the main focus on the content preparation and arranging participation of the speakers and guests. When it came to the technical arrangement at the venue, the event organizers discovered that the venue was equipped but not staffed adequately to coordinate and take care of the audiovisual side. At the same time, it is not the Swiss embassy team’s responsibility to overtake this technical position.

The main concern was: that if anything went wrong with the sound or the screen - that would be immediately obvious to the 200-people audience, and ruin the whole experience. With the VIP speakers and guests, there was no headroom for failure.

Even though the audiovisual part is just one of the elements, the whole event realization depends on it. Let's just take a look at what could go wrong.

Downtime between speakers and slides. That awkward moment when the speaker is waiting for his/her slides to be shown, or a wandering mouse pointer going between windows while opening files, creating an unprofessional impression.
Microphone failure or uneven volume during speeches.
In case of troubleshooting: waiting time from the audience and disruption of the speaker and organizers.
Unprofessional appearance and behavior attracting unneeded attention. That may happen with some partners, especially those who do not have experience with highly professional events.
Poor coordination with other vendors like the simultaneous interpretation team. This may generate an unnecessary burden to the client, taking their focus and resources away from the event's purpose.
The inefficiency of a language barrier in the case of working with the local venue team: while preparing and during the event. A lot of “bilingual” vendors have only English-speaking staff on their sales team, who are not even present during the event.

The Swiss embassy team aimed only for an excellent experience for the guests of the forum.

Ensuring a Smooth Experience and Perfect Reputation

Remembering the productive cooperation with LIFE.14 in the past, the Swiss embassy reached out to LIFE.14 for advice.

Ultimately, the Swiss embassy needed to bring their ideal event to reality without involving their own manpower in the area where they had no expertise. And the quality of execution was crucial.

LIFE.14 team generated solid expertise in arranging videography in Japan and live streaming during business conferences and organizational events of various scales since 2015. With the team members who also have a niche expertise in videography and sound management, Swiss embassy was offered an Audiovisual Solution service that was supposed to remove from them all the burden of figuring out the technical side.

Here is what LIFE.14 ensured during the “Switzerland–Japan Economic Forum 2023”:

Screen and document management. There was no downtime between speakers and slides, switching between documents (presentation slides and video files) was timely and all the process behind slides was invisible to the organizers and the guests.
Sound management: LIFE.14 sound director brought our own sound system including sets of microphones to ensure there would be no failure and was adjusting the sound in real-time during the 2-hour event.
Delivering adequate representation to the sponsors: each high-profile sponsor was promised by the Swiss embassy a specific amount of screen time for their brands during the on-site event, this was demonstrated both at the venue, the full-event video recording, as well as on the highlight video.
Smooth coordination work with the interpretation team that did not require client attention led to a proper quality of sound for the guests and the full-recording video.
Communication with the Swiss embassy during the preparation phase, at the event, and post-event was conducted freely in English, Japanese, and French by a dedicated person at LIFE.14, which reduced the risk of information loss and misunderstanding.

On the day of the event, while no English support was provided by the venue, all the needed communication went through LIFE.14 in the Swiss embassy team's preferred language, resulting in clear execution.

With LIFE.14 in the background, the event went smoothly and at the expected level.

Finally, a head of the organizing team of the Swiss embassy expressed: