How do I reach the citizens of a municipality in 2022? With an event? Or with a livestream? Quite clearly: with both, a hybrid citizens’ meeting!
The municipality of Aying shows how hybrid citizens’ meetings will work in 2022. With an on-site audience and simultaneous live transmission, Mayor Peter Wagner reaches significantly more people than with just an on-site event or a pure livestream.
Hybrid session: Aying shows the way!
It was a test in some municipalities during the Corona crisis, but now it is proving to be a good alternative. The Bavarian Parliament has also spoken out in favour of hybrid meetings in the long term. A hybrid citizens’ meeting is defined in such a way that both municipal representatives and the public can participate on site or digitally.
In concrete terms, it went like this in Aying: On April 28, the event kicked off at 7 p.m. in the Schalander of the Aying brewery. Two technicians from our team controlled cameras, image, sound, beamer and light. The local citizens could thus – as usual – listen to the speeches of the mayor, the police and the district administrator and watch the slides. Our loudspeakers ensured pleasant listening on site.
Clear sound, sharp picture and large slides in the stream
In the stream, on the other hand, the audience got a mixed picture: Our team worked with so-called pips (picture in picture). This made it possible to show the slides in the stream, including the reaction of the respective speaker. And so quite a few participants followed the hybrid citizens’ meeting from the comfort of their couch at home.
Landing page with question function in the stream at the hybrid citizens’ meeting
To ensure that all citizens’ questions could be asked equally, a microphone was set up on site. The questioner was not shown in the camera image, but only the voice was to be transmitted. The viewers at home were also thought of. On the landing page of the event, they could send in their questions via a form. The mayor then read off a list of questions on an iPad, recited them and answered them.
In this way, the municipality of Aying achieved equal opportunities at the hybrid citizens’ meeting: all the citizens’ questions could be asked, heard and answered both on site and in the stream.
DSGVO-compliant transmission: German server, German provider
The issue of DSGVO is always important for all transmissions. Because our customers at Stream1 get everything from a single source and we also operate our servers directly in the German data centre, the topic of data protection is a matter of course for us. We have no interest in storing, evaluating or otherwise using data. Only the number of viewers is monitored on the server side so that we can keep an eye on the transmission capacity.
But that is also something that is exciting for our customers:
100 viewers on site, 120 terminals in the stream: double success.
Certainly, at the hybrid citizens’ meeting at the end of April 2022, Corona contributed to the fact that people on site were still a little hesitant. However, experience shows that there were actually never more than 150 spectators on site at a citizens’ meeting in Aying – not even before Corona. Assuming that the 120 terminal units brought about 160 spectators (if, for example, 40 spectators watched in pairs in front of one unit), the citizens’ meeting reached a total of 260 spectators. A significant increase: 100 viewers more than before Corona!
The digital citizens’ assembly as a hybrid event or hybrid meeting is therefore a win-win for everyone: more viewers, more reach, more comfort. Of course, we also recommend that other municipalities around Munich take an interest in our services and hold their next citizens’ assembly hybrid. The municipality of Tegernsee is also fully committed to hybrid citizens’ meetings.
We would be happy to advise you on a hybrid citizens’ assembly and to plan and conduct the broadcast for you. You can reach us for an initial consultation directly by telephone on 0049 89 41 41 453 10. From our office at Munich’s Ostbahnhof railway station, we can be in Munich and the surrounding area for you quickly.
