Hybrid revolution at Lille Grand Palais: interview with Hervé Vauvillier

What is Lille Grand Palais' strategy behind the launch of this new hybrid offering?

Hervé Vauvillier - We could have positioned ourselves on a new, purely financial offering. digital, but we've opted for thehybrid. This can be explained by theLille Grand Palais DNA a congress centre is first and foremost there to welcome physical people. So we didn't opt to set up a purely digital TV studio, as other venues have done with empty or unoccupied rooms. We didn't make this choice because we felt it would be a fashionable way to respond to an emergency, in the immediacy of a health crisis. Many offers of this type have emerged on the market, perhaps more than enough. Instead, we wanted to capitalising on the futurewith a sustainable offerbecause we believe that there is a real desire among our customers to return to the physical world. But we have to recognise that the world has changed with the health crisis, and that from now on there will always be a digital component. So we set up thetomorrow's offercombining physics and the digital in terms of the approach and configuration of events. This is more in line with our DNA, which is to welcome the public to our venues. We can draw on a surface area of 45 000 m²With three different stage capacities, offering customers enough agility to capitalise on the physical with a digital touch, or vice versa.

What does this mean in terms of investment for Lille Grand Palais?

Hervé Vauvillier - It's not a question of investment as such: we already had our stages, our spaces, with technical equipment already in place. We can also count on our audiovisual technical department with its cameras and audio equipment, but we're working with a partner to offer even more technology than the configurations on offer. This allows us to arrange the space in a different way so as to create a universeWith a vast LED wall, and one of the largest green backdrops on the French market. With a surface area 15m deep, 25m long and 5m high, we can offer some extraordinary things, because the stage space allows it. Our offer is agile, it's not set in stone. Lille Grand Palais is the ideal venue not only for a physical event - that's its core DNA - but it also knows how to manage a hybrid demand that includes digital technology.

Lille Grand Palais is there to combine technology and space, with sufficient surface area to guarantee social distance.

Do you think that the digital component will last in the medium to long term after the crisis?

Hervé Vauvillier - It's hard to predict the future. Digital will inevitably be with us for some time, if only for economic reasons. Rather than getting everyone to come to the site, the organisers are going to think twice about it and organise shorter, smaller, and therefore more economical physical eventswith the option of following the convention online. There's also the CSRWe're also becoming more environmentally aware, even if digital technology is not without impact. Even so, there's a certain saturation with all things digital, between team meetings and TV shows. It's difficult to encourage interactive exchanges in this format, which has often been limited to a top-down approach, even though over time the organisers of these events have succeeded in creating emotion, and have learned a lot over the months. A totally digital event is not the same as a physical event. It requires a shorter format, with more concentrated subjects, to make it dynamic. Today, Lille Grand Palais is there to combine technology and venues, with sufficient surface area to guarantee social distance.

Does your hybrid offering include secure data transmission?

Hervé Vauvillier - Exactly: we back our streaming offer with an IBM platform offered by our technical partner, which is part of our package with broadcasting on secure high-speed platforms.

Have you had any feedback from your customers about what they expect from a digital or hybrid event?

Hervé Vauvillier - Few people have considered setting up a digital event at Lille Grand Palais, which just goes to show that when people come to a convention centre, they tend to think in terms of an all or partly physical solution. But digital will enable us to reach more people, new audiences.

In fact, we are used to organising hybrid events, events that combine exhibitions and conference rooms, for example.

With the advent of hybrids, do you feel you're in a new line of work?

Hervé Vauvillier - Basically, no. It's perhaps more the job of the organisers that's going to change. We are a host venue, and as such we have a duty to welcome all types of events in the best possible conditions. That's what we're offering with this hybrid package. In all cases, it involves create the event. In this sense, our business has not changed: we still need to be agile in relation to the different types of event. By the way, our building itself is a hybridThere are three parts: the show area with the Zenith brand, the purely congress centre with its three amphitheatres and sub-commission rooms, and finally the exhibition area. All connected and integrated within the same building. So, in fact, we are used to organising hybrid events, events that combine exhibitions and conference rooms, for example.

If the profession of organiser is changing, is it the role of Lille Grand Palais to support them in this transformation?

Hervé Vauvillier - In any case, we can reassure them that we provide solutions. Event agencies are also there to provide solutions for their clients, that's their job, both in terms of the operational side and in terms of content. For our part, we can help them at the operational level, and we already do so when we deal directly with advertisers who don't go through agencies to help them with the logistics.

an opportunity for Lille Grand Palais, which will be able to compete for events whose capacity was previously too large

Lille's geographical location was a crucial advantage for organising physical events. But isn't this argument being challenged by a virtual audience?

Hervé Vauvillier - Lille is 60 minutes from Paris, 30 minutes from Brussels and 80 minutes from London. a prime location in terms of accessibility. But now there's also a digital option for those who can't travel. But as I said a moment ago a strong desire to return to the physical world. Basically, we're still selling our amphitheatres in the same way as we sell physical spaces, except that we're adding technology to them. On the contrary, this may open the door to other conventions, events that used to bring together 5,000 or 6,000 people, who will have to limit themselves to 1,000 participants on site and the rest of the audience in digital format. We can accommodate them. So it's more of an opportunity for Lille Grand Palais, which will be able to compete for events that previously had too much capacity.

After months of paralysis, this is an exciting new era for a player like Lille Grand Palais...

Hervé Vauvillier - Yes: some people may have had doubts for a while, thinking that people would no longer want to get together, that the fear of contamination and physical contact would outweigh the desire to meet. But that's not the case.