About the forum

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is responsible for planning, investing and overseeing research and development and delivers improvements in production, sustainability and profitability across the Australian grains industry. The GRDC’s research portfolio covers 25 crops and is worth over $7 billion per year in farm production. Each year the GRDC holds a two-day forum for grains advisers, which showcases the latest agronomic and grains industry research and issues of interest to grains advisers.

The problem

By their nature, the GRDC’s stakeholders are widespread and mostly located in regional and rural Australia, which makes it challenging for them to attend the forum. This means the GDRC is faced with the challenge of engaging stakeholders who are unable to attend the forum and provide them with similar access to information being given to the forum’s delegates.

The solution

The GRDC wanted to align the experience of delegates and online users as closely as possible so both could view speaker presentations and (in real time) all accompanying visuals. The Adelaide Convention Centre’s (ACC) web streaming technology provided the perfect solution to meet the needs of the GRDC and its stakeholders.

The GRDC identified a key group of stakeholders who would benefit from web streaming and targeted them via email to promote access to the service. Remote stakeholders then simply needed to review the forum program to plan which presentations they wanted to see, just like delegates. Instead of heading to the relevant conference hall they logged onto the ACC’s dedicated media streaming site at the appropriate time and could watch the presentations in real time.

The live web streaming service was complemented by a video-on-demand service where the GRDC stakeholders, including delegates who attended the forum, were able to view the speaker presentations in their own time.

The outcomes

During the forum, the ACC’s video cameras live streamed more than 50 presentations from the plenary hall and three other meeting rooms directly onto the site.

The forum attracted 350 delegates from around Australia, with a further 54 logging in to view live speaker presentations from their desktop computers and laptops. As a result of the ACC’s built-in web streaming service, the GDRC was able to increase participation at its forum by more than 15 per cent.

“The ACC helped us to enhance the event experience for our clients and attendees,” says event organiser Matt McCarthy.

“They understand that we live in a digital age where people expect to be able to access information quickly and easily, and innovation is essential for keeping people engaged.

“We now see how a live forum and a digital service like web streaming can complement each other in the future.”