Our team love nothing more than being challenged to create ever-more engaging, creative and exciting applications for our services. Now that the enormous pandemic-driven boom in remote and hybrid events has created two new arenas to play in, the possibilities for live illustration, visualisation, animation and more, are growing all the time. 
Ask the audience
To fully engage your audience, involve them directly in the live scribing process by asking specific questions or gathering feedback on key issues or topics, which can be used by the artist creating the artwork. This will ensure the audience feels heard and results in a meaningful output to reinforce learning or communicate a business goal.
What to consider:
- Allow time - for maximum impact, allocate enough time for the audience to warm up and share honest comments, and for the artist to fully complete the work. For remote events, plan for at least 2 hours, but with shorter events, our enriched package is ideal - it enables co-designing elements in advance to boost participation and allows follow-up time for adding depth to the artwork.
- Set the objective - will the final artwork be shared with participants as session documentation, printed as an office mural, or used in marketing? Clarifying this in advance and sharing it with the audience encourages buy-in and guides the selection of relevant questions.
- Encourage answers - aim for a mix of open questions that encourage storytelling and insights, e.g. ‘What does the future of ‘ the company’ look like?’ or ‘What’s the best piece of advice you've been given?’
Virtual voting
Engagement increases when participants can see the artwork taking shape in real-time. Showcase it at a dedicated slot and have guests use voting/sticker tools to mark favourites to enable real-time feedback and a sense of co-ownership.
What to consider:
- Test the tech - It sounds obvious but test your tech stack ahead of the event to troubleshoot any issues and be mindful that your artist won’t be an expert in your specific software. Opt for our advanced package for extra time to test live functionality with the artist.
- Make a record - Most inbuilt voting tools are temporary so ensure a member of your team takes screen grabs to have a record of votes. This can be passed to your scribe to help them consolidate the process into their final image.
Illustration drop-in
To highlight participant ideas, dedicate a breakout space for bespoke illustrations - particularly ideal for hackathon-style events with numerous shared ideas. Use a schedule of 10-20 min slots, allowing guests to pre-book. They can collaborate with an artist, explaining their idea while witnessing its creation via screen share. Polished images will be shared post-event as open-source files for the entire audience to use and repurpose.
What to consider:
- Time it right - alongside the bookable slots, your artist will need a number of catch up slots where they can polish the sketches they’ve created and save the appropriate files to the shared drive.
- Set a brief - great projects require clear boundaries. To make this concept work, establish a purpose for creating these images. Whether it's illustrations for a white paper or a crowd-sourced yearbook of achievements, ensure a clear brief for both the artist and participants meeting with them.
- Do your prep - building on a clear brief, participants need a precise vision of what they want to illustrate and why, to optimise their time with the artist. Share questions beforehand to help them formulate ideas and extract maximum value from the experience, such as ‘How would you explain this to an alien or child?’ or ‘What's the most important thing to represent in the image?’
Make the most of breakouts
During live events, breakout sessions offer valuable insights as groups delve deep into their challenges. We advise against floating between groups, which can lead to ideas being taken out of context and bias towards the last group visited. If artists are limited, consider either prioritising playback periods for scribing insights or assigning a 'runner' per group to feed back ‘a-ha moments’ to the scribe - using shared tools like Google Docs or chat functions for remote setups.
What to consider?
- Avoid bottle-necks - remember, your scribe is human and can only capture so much within a fixed timeframe. If many groups present solutions towards the end of the event, consider adjusting timings to ensure the artist is present for the most relevant sections of the agenda and has enough time to develop the right content effectively
- Don’t over share - Shared tools like Google Docs are excellent for crowd-sourcing and note-taking, but they can turn into information overload for your artist. Encourage participants to prioritise their ideas, keeping things focused and moving smoothly. This will result in a more balanced and visually engaging artwork.
Use the artwork as your North Star
The easiest and most cost effective way of engaging people with the live scribing process is to embed it into your event proceedings and refer to it frequently (we suggest start, middle, and end points for events over 2 hours). Displaying the artist's work in stages boosts remote attendees' energy and makes them feel acknowledged. For added value, co-create pre-drawn themes or signposts to guide discussions and keep participants excited about upcoming content during and after the event.
What to consider:
- Find the perfect slot - ask your producer to help you work out the optimal number of viewing slots to captivate your audience and give your scribe enough time to get ideas down on paper.