DLC covers 1,600-delegate conference with DIS
Published: MEA
UAE: DLC supplied the Dubai World Trade Centre with the digital conferencing equipment to cater for the recent World Telecoms Standardisation Assembly, immediately followed by the World Conference on International Telecoms. The event saw 1,600 delegates from 151 member states meet for two weeks to reform the International Telecoms Regulations, last debated in Melbourne in 1988.
The conference was held in multiple areas of Sheikh Saeed Hall simultaneously, hence was run as a ‘silent’ conference. This meant there was no PA system and all delegates had to rely on the headphone output from the conference microphones to listen to the event.
Mark Breakspear, project manager for DLC, supported by DIS International Rental (DISIR) and a team of local technicians, provided a total of 1,600 DC6190 conference microphones, 100 DC6990 conference microphones with incorporated touch-screens for the smaller rooms and head tables, 1,500 wireless receivers for those not sat by a microphone, full infra-red signal coverage over the four main rooms and the equipment needed to facilitate the simultaneous interpretation into five languages.
DLC used the SW6000 conference management software from DIS to program microphones to the delegation assigned to that seat. This enabled the chairman to see who was requesting the floor and to choose which delegation spoke at which time.
On top of its main responsibility for the conference equipment, DLC also facilitated the provision of high definition remote cameras in the two main halls. These operated on a coordinate system linked together with the conference management software to get a clean shot of each delegate immediately after they started speaking.
Working to a system design by Mark Jones of DISIR, the DLC technical team installed the system to prevent major loss of functionality should a technical problem arise. On the one occasion that this happened due to a delegate who disconnected their own microphone, it only rendered a small number of microphones inactive and the software told the technician on duty exactly where the problem occurred immediately. This enabled them to rectify the issue within only a few minutes.
The other challenge faced by DLC was the frequent changes to the seating plan throughout the conference. This required the team to edit positions and lists in the Conference Administrator Application. However, the ease of use of the software and skills of the technicians operating it meant the turnaround of revised seating plans was swift and accurate.
‘Being so heavily involved in such a monumentous event has been truly exciting and I'm proud of my team and the equipment for delivering such a high standard of service,’ said Mr Breakspear. ‘This has been the largest event ever catered for by DLC and the way the DCS6000 digital discussion system from DIS can be modularly expanded to cope with any size of conference imaginable and still run as smoothly as a small room set up is truly impressive.’