Seven reasons to invest in getting good video footage of your conference

If you’re going to spend money on a conference video, it helps to work out what the purpose of the video is.

I organise two international conferences for speechwriters a year. I also organised the UK Funeral Awards and the Ideal Death Show for seven years. I’ve commissioned dozens of videos to promote the events. In this article I evaluate some of the strategies that worked for me.

1) To reinforce the value of the conference in the minds of those who attended. 

From my own experience, the only people you can depend upon to watch the post-conference video is those who were at the conference.

We like seeing ourselves. We’re curious how the camera recorded the event. We’ll click on the link on the post-conference email to see what it looks like. A 60-90 second video with music will do this. About 50% of the delegates who attend the conference each year have attended before. That justifies the expense.

2) To sell tickets for next year

As an experienced conference organiser, my job is to sell the same ‘experience’ every year, but the details are always different.

For our spring conference we go to an Oxford or Cambridge college for two and a half days. The thrill is to stay in a place with outstanding architecture for three nights. We have pre-conference training on the first day. On the second and third day we have the main conference. Usually with some eminent speakers.

On the evening of the second day we have a conference banquet in a grand banqueting hall, followed by a public speaking contest. We get about 80 people attending from all over the world. The conference video features all these things. You can see who was there and what they did. Only 100 people who weren't at the conference may view the video, but there are only probably 1500 working speechwriters in Europe. It's a great way to reach them.

3) To raise the profile of the organisation and attract new members

After I’d commissioned six of seven conference videos, I was aware they have less impact. We do the same things every time.

What could I do to communicate the values of our organisation? As speechwriters we want to share what we do with the wider public. I thought we could create ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Speechwriting’.

We asked our eminent speakers during the conference to talk about their work in a way that was acccessible to school children and students. I had hoped we could show it in schools - and a speechwriter could give an accompanying talk.

Despite emailing a dozen or so schools, I got no replies, so I abandoned the idea. However, the video has attracted about three times more views than the standard conference video. And it does offer useful advice to the aspiring speechwriter.

4) To communicate the mood of the event

As a speechwriter I know we have to communicate emotion as well as logic. Those who didn't go to the funeral awards had some wild conceptions of what they were like.

The video could deal with that. The problem was, what do you use to structure the content? For this video we used one of the speeches as a voice over.

The image of the baby created an emotional moment in the video. It certainly moved me. I continued to organise the event for one extra year against my better judgement because the combination of speech and video was so powerful! 

5) To record significant contributions to the conference

Just before the UK referendum on Europe we invited Phil Collins, Tony Blair's former speechwriter, to talk to us about the campaign. He made a brilliant contribution, but we didn't have the means to make it go viral.

To record a speech in its entirety requires expensive equipment and multiple cameras, which we can’t afford. It's a valuable to us to have a record of the speech - I went back to it and used a quote for a postcard we printed. However, there are thousands of brilliant lecture videos on YouTube with less than a thousand views.

6) To deliver a message

For seven years I worked with the funeral trade to create an event that recognised the outstanding work they did with the bereaved. I also wanted to challenge the way people thought about death.

Unfortunately I had to give it up, but I'm glad that Kevin Toolis articulated beautifully what I was trying to do. If I ever revisit this subject, the video describes what I'm selling.

7) To persuade eminent speakers to speak at the event

We have ten speaking slots at every conference. We have two conferences a year. We rarely use the same speaker twice. That's a lot of people to approach and persuade to speak.

It helps if you can show that speechwriters from the White House and Downing Street appear regularly at our conference. Here's Michelle Obama's former speechwriter in conversation with David Camerons' speechwriter at Queen's College, Oxford.

I'm grateful to ConferenceFilm for filming these video clips over the years. You can find our more about their services by clicking the link below.