West Park Park Bench Podcast ep.15 - All or Nothing | Connectivity

9:57AM Sep 27, 2022

Speakers:

Caron Lyon

Keywords:

venue

audience

space

physical

zoom

event

people

internet connectivity

cyber

stories

salon

storyteller

artists

audio

alt

29th

attend

opened

cosy

access

Welcome to Episode 15 of the West Park Park Bench Podcast. And it's getting decidedly autumnal when I started this series 15 episodes ago, the fact that the seasonal changes would bring a season to a close or a series to a close hadn't dawned on me. But I may have to move locations at some point and I think when I do that I might make an opportunity to to change. We might have a cosy cast. I would love to be able to find a local cafe where I can sit in the corner and do this and sit by a night roaring fire be awesome. But for today, there is blue sky. The trees are starting to show some browns and golds. I do I do love this time of year when the leaves have fallen. And especially when they're crunchy. You know there's something as a kid jumping through puddles you can get a bit wet crunching through leaves as long as it's dry. Equally as satisfying.

Now, I have a real problem with people who are organising professional events and charging ticket prices and defining the physical audience as in person and everybody else is what what they're not they're not in person. They're not personally present. They're personally present but digital. They're personally present but physical and I think there's a there's a demeaning factor that potentially alters what you can charge for your tickets. You know, if you're giving people a letter experience for not being in person, I think there's a real discussion and analysis of what people mean by in person. So for me, I have venue, a digital venue and a virtual venue. Those venues each have an audience in their own right, they have chosen to attend in that format, neither any one of them are no less valid. Being in the physical audience. You get to socialise, you get to be in the crowd, you get to be sat next to somebody else. You get to have a drink afterwards. There might be some socialising you're in a physical space and for some people, that is great. But there are access issues with those those transport issues. There's especially in the winter, there's safety issues returning home late at night. Take the digital audience that might be the very reason you're not in the physical venue. And likewise in the virtual venue. You do turn up you do stand next to somebody else you can turn and talk to them you you can you can't eat in the space. And it's probably get a bit messy if you're eating in your headset. So there's not the five senses experience that you can have in world but it's most definitely a choice and an experience. So all or nothing, a lot of these experiences except the physical one

Episode 15 All or Nothing there's gonna be a few of these all on the things. This all or nothing is internet connectivity. This week I have started to shift into doing some live streaming from the venue. So being on the ground with the venue audience and streaming from the venue to a digital audience. Now at this point, there's a definition of vocabulary going on around the experience industry, the event industry, theatrical experiences, immersive experiences, and there's this word that comes up quite a lot and that's in person.

is determined by internet connectivity. And then we come on to the next on the think vocabulary word that I think we need to talk about and that's hybrid. Now, if you are just doing a physical event and making the other audience watch that's not hybrid, there's nothing blended about that you just happen to have two sets of audiences who are in two different spaces. Are they engaging the content in a hybrid way? Or are you seeing your audience as multifaceted and hybrid is just a lazy way of saying we've got more than one audience. Hybrid content now all on a think in terms of internet connectivity if you are going to have so let's take an example. This Thursday if you would like to experience what I'm at the moment calling a try experience now a try presents audience experience. And that is there's going to be people in the physical space in Newspeak house London. So if you London, great, but if you want to be at a physical event, you can't be there. So London this Thursday. So this it will be the 29th So apologies if you are listening to this post the 29th of September, however, you can still access the virtual world space, so that will still be there. So keep listening. Physical audience will be in Newspeak house, I will be in London Newspeak house, I will have my primary laptop with a zoom call running. And that Zoom call is going to host those that are attending digitally because they're from around the world and cyber salon. does have a global audience or they could be from outside London. You know, you don't want to travel an hour, hour and a half to a venue. You're never quite sure when the last buses are. You stick around and have a drink you missed the last bus. That can be a real anxiety thing. And also, if you come to something physical you feel like you have to leave early and then there's that you are missing out on the conversation that really you would have liked to have been there for. So that is something that the digital audience there will be a digital audience and the keynote speaker or the key address from Douglas Rushkoff. He is going to be a zoom guest. So that primary computer will project the Zoom call with him onto the main screen and the physical audience will receive Douglass's address because it's in zoom we're taking that one step further. That zoom call, which is being able to see the venue because I've got a camera pointing at the stage. They will be able to see Douglas who will be on the zoom on the screen, but they will be watching on a zoom call that Zoom call is going to be streamed onto a big screen in a virtual world space. So people who do have VR headsets do have an interest in online gaming can access alt space VR, you can do it via a piece of software downloaded onto your windows, laptop, desktop. Mac doesn't always work. I can't get it to work on a Mac at the moment hence, I'm taking my trusty Windows machine down with me to run alt space and alt space will be running and then we will be having the stream going in there. So this audience is going to be try presents. And then at the end we're gonna have a DJ in the physical space and that audio will also go and the video will go to all three audiences there will come a point when the Zoom call will close. The audience in the physical venue will continue to Part A the virtual audience will have an open space until 10 o'clock and they will be left to their own devices to play as they will so we do have a custom built space. So even if you just want to go in and see the cyber salon exhibition, there are two of the stories I should tell you what the event is for the event is a book launch 22 ideas about the future. And it was compiled from short stories that were written over a series of zoom events held by cyber salon during the pandemic were story writers who write about future technologies future scenarios, future stories, what what's the world going to look like using fiction to show us a vision of the future?

wrote some stories. Those stories were compiled into an anthology, which has been published as a book called the 22 ideas about the future and it's going to launch having a party to say hey, this book is now published. Go buy it. Let's celebrate we did it. So having the virtual space is really key to this particular thing. The relevance of having the tribe presence has never been so relevant. And I'm really excited about delivering that three pronged audience presence, to watch a venue to watch somebody been brought in to talk over zoom in the old space, there are some mid journey images that have been generated using prompts from two of the short stories that have been exhibited on the wall. So we can also have this exhibition, which will be there after the event closes. We've also got a poster wall. So one of the things about cyber salon if you come along to cyber salon is that they always put posters from previous events up around the walls, and I really liked that because when you've been to where you got all I was at that one, and it was at that one and that kind of little conversation starters if you kind of don't quite know you can say oh which were you at any of the events are you uh you know, if you've been here before, that's a great thing for me because I'm, I'm not very good at starting conversations sometimes. Finding out about what other people are doing once I'm there. I'm fine. So there is I have tracked down as many of those posters as I possibly can, and they are exhibited on the wall. So that is going to be there. So, I'm going to wrap this little bit up here about the connectivity, that's gonna be really important. If I don't have connectivity, all of this can crumble. And that's where being in the physical audience, you are going to guarantee an experience of some kind. So there is a disappointment factor scale and there's a risk factor. So that is really key. So that is going to be on Thursday the 29th in the shownotes. I will put the address of the venue and the Eventbrite ticket link. I will put the Zoom registration information if you want to attend via zoom and I will also put the invite to the alt space event, which you can RSVP and then you can enter once the event starts. There's also a cyber salon group, which you can join which will give you access to a cyber salon space which is a mirror image of what we're using for the event and you can go in there anytime I meet with people who have joined the cyber salon space. So that's try presents, and that's all or nothing come for me that's the first stage of fingers crossed, turning some of those 22 ideas about the future stories into some stage place. Just short ones. I'll leave that there. So the next all on a thing is another example. Last Wednesday, I did a live stream for beast and tails a local storyteller group who bring fantastic storytellers from all around the UK to perform. And I haven't attended many storytelling events and it really brings it home to me that storytelling is not the same as a performed monologue. It's not a character that's been channelled. It's a story that's been channelled and it's a very, very different dynamic, and storyteller was fantastic. So Louise Wilkinson, I believe I will put the details in the show notes. But what happened here for all on I think there was no Wi Fi that we could access in the space. And I went and tested the week before that we had a reasonable enough up and down internet connection from a mobile hotspot to be able to run a zoom call. And indeed there was it was slim, but I believed that it would hold. However, I arrived at the venue on the Wednesday and there was no signal on either of the SIM cards that I had purchased specifically for this event. So the backup also on a different network didn't have a signal. And luckily one of the storytellers did have a hotspot on his phone that was connected to a network that did have a signal and it did hold the entire zoom. So all on I think we had that. The nice conclusion story to this particular bit before the and finally

the physical audience paid a ticket price. And that ticket price didn't quite cover, the higher of the hall and the payment of the artists. However, the 15 livestream guests that we had, who paid a smaller amount, because we're doing a test did raise the income to enough that it broke even the venue. It paid the artists and it makes it viable to continue doing the physical event. So if it was not for the digital audience, the physical event would not be viable and I found that a really, really valuable insight to be able to share. So the and finally to that really good piece of news. All on I think audio is absolutely essential. And my all on the think next week will be audio I have various microphones. I have various desktop microphones that are on omni directional ones that are single directional. I can't remember the word of the omni directional and I can't remember the other one one's a heart shaped profile and one circular profile. Anyway, I am going to have to find a way of improving my audio. It's already I would say for me it's a 45 percenter I want to be at a regular 85 95% audio to my standards. So next week I am going to be all or nothing is going to be the audio. But this week the will on I think I have final final a final final. There's a new venue that's opened in Nottingham and this is the complete opposite end of the all or nothing spectrum this is absolutely nothing. This is currently a space called the void which is in a spectacular cave complex beneath a escape rooms. Business. They can't use the caves because of health and safety for their escape rooms. So they have opened up the use of this underground cavern for artists and theatremakers to use as rehearsal space. It's got a maximum capacity of 80 people including the organisers because of fire regulations, but it's just a really nice space. Very quiet. If you want to do just immersive meditation, I'd be fantastic yoga space maybe not quite so I'm getting carried away. But there it is so beautiful. I'm going to put a link in the chat but that is chronic insanities new space at the void bringing things together I am hoping to in the new year maybe March time to do beast and tails in the void. So the live streams of beasts and tails will be perfected. And then we will be going down into the caverns where fingers crossed the all or nothing. We will have interconnectivity but at the moment there is no internet connectivity. We are working out or the venue is working out how we can get a mesh network Wi Fi down into the cabin. I've got some ideas. I've worked with some people during COVID who I think would love this project. If you aren't listening to this and you are mesh networking, or you are an IT infrastructure company who would like to partner you know where I am at PCM creative. do get in touch I have no idea how long I've been talking to today. But it was really important that I shared some things that I'm up to, but I also connected it to something that I hope that you can take away and think about so the all or nothing internet connection is there anything about internet in venues that would be useful for you? I guess I should write something about this all or nothing in a blog post. I haven't been writing blogs recently because this has been this has been a swaging my guilt of not blogging. So thank you so much. For making it to the end of episode 15 of the West Park park bench podcast and catch you next week.