NACAC at the Drive-In!

As an experienced A/V guy who has wandered in and out of conference sessions maybe 40,000 times over 30 years to check on session recordings, the experience of walking into a crowded ballroom with four sessions happening simultaneously was unusual and eerie! Weirdly, it was also quite nostalgic. I couldn’t place it at first, but then it hit me all at once.

NACAC’s (National Association for College Admission Counseling) Annual Conference, held Sept 26-28 in Louisville, KY, attempted a grand experiment…and succeeded! How do you fit four concurrent sessions in a single ballroom? Well, first, you have to lose the amplification. That’s right, no speakers! Presenters still needed to speak into microphones, but instead of amplifying them to the large room, attendees were asked to wear headphones tied to wireless signals. Once they picked the session, they wanted to listen to, headsets tuned to the right frequency were supplied, and then they sat and faced the correct screen with the PowerPoints and the presenter.

Presenters spoke in normal tones, barely audible to the naked ear. The entire experience had a multi-screen drive-in movie quality to it. For those old enough to remember drive-in movies, you’ll remember the eerie quietness of hundreds of cars pointed in multi-directions while watching multi-screen projections of different films with a tethered mini-speaker latched onto your car window for audio. NACAC’s 4-session ballroom had that same feel. Organized chaos! The ballroom, decked in purple LED wall lights, even had a starlit ceiling to complete the effect! The only thing missing was the popcorn!

This decision by NACAC was brilliant. People like to have shared communal experiences. No one wants to feel like they’re missing out. Seeing four sessions happening at the same time in the same ballroom satisfied all of this. Playback Now was there to capture all of it…x4!

Now I just need to get over the fear of walking into a room with that many people and sessions happening at once, and hearing nothing but silence! For an A/V guy, that’s the worst fear in the world.
Pass the popcorn!