Creative communications group DRPG staged its ‘Bigtalk’ event, which saw 150 of its clients from across Europe attend the headquarter studio complex in Worcestershire this week. Now in its sixth year, Bigtalk is the group’s flagship thought leadership event where industry leaders and expert practitioners from DRPG, its brands, partners and suppliers shared the latest trends, new discoveries, and best practices to boost its clients’ communications performance.
After two years of virtual and hybrid solutions to the brand’s thought leadership offering, Bigtalk is back in its original live format. This year, DRPG homed in on a performance-boosting theme, following on from the West Midland’s legacy of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games this summer, of which DRPG was its Official Event Services Provider. The programme incorporated paralleled sporting and business themes into the keynote presentations, workshops and interactive sessions, hosted by experts from the industry and the DRPG team.
The day kicked-off with an industry positioning of two halves, from DRPG’s Head of Insight & Innovation, Callum Gill, who explained the importance of data-driven customer experience and personalisation. Following this, Director of Campaign Sara Lyddy and Creative Director James Nam looked at the value of an omnichannel approach and tailoring for different audiences.
Delegates from both internal and external communications roles continued their afternoon attending performance zone workshops and coaching sessions, chosen by them in their bespoke agendas, ensuring the content was relevant to their fields.
DRPG partnered with Creative Technology and Holoplot to showcase a world-first for their industry. Combining Ghostframe AV technology to distribute content from a single LED screen with Holoplot’s 3D audio beamforming technology to steer audio and target down to just one individual in certain environments. The blended technology demonstrated the possibility to seamlessly deliver four presentations in multiple languages from one stage and presenter at the same time.
Nick Fagan, Creative Technologist at DRPG commented: “We’re really excited at the possibilities in ‘spotlighting’ audio and visual for live and virtual event audiences, from catering for delegates who do not speak the language of the event they are at, but also those with additional audio needs. This means a non-intrusive, but highly personalised welcome for the delegate, showing them that the event values their presence as an individual and is willing to invest in technology that adds to their over-all experience.”
From elevating video content to understanding what the metaverse could do for businesses, Bigtalk’s programme permits delegates to claim Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) points for attending. The day’s agenda culminated with dedicated time to give something back, as DRPG teamed up with Lightbulb Teams to guide the audience in constructing 20 prosthetic hands from scratch that will later be fitted to a recipient, either child or adult, in a developing country that has lost a limb.
The evening’s sustainable dinner included a guided menu by Chef Graham Brookes, who explained how each course used only Worcestershire-sourced food as well as local accompanying wines, cocktails and mocktails. The sporting theme continued into the evening with Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Team England boxer Delicious Orie providing the after-dinner talk.
Dale Parmenter, CEO of DRPG, commented: “It was brilliant we were able to showcase some of the incredible technology that we’ll be seeing in the future event and comms landscape. Our clients got hands-on with realistic metaverse solutions and innovations that increase inclusivity in events and experiences.
The aim of our Bigtalk event this year was to provide our clients with insights on the most important topics right now, and to help the creative and comms industry grow in a period of such rapid change. It’s great to get the vast array of industries together to discuss the commonalities and shared experiences to learn from and move forward collectively.”
DRPG launched the first Bigtalk event in 2016. It saw over 100 people come together for the biggest shared conversation to date, and each year the event grows. Through the ‘bitesize broadcasts’ that ran throughout the virtual events period and the exclusive ‘DRPGtalk’ live events, a series of insightful discussions focusing on thought leadership, DRPG’s aim is to share knowledge among industries to improve and enhance the way we all work in the fast-evolving world of communications.
