Boys and Girls Club SF’s First-Ever Virtual Event Delivers the Wow

The challenge

A first foray into virtual events, with a mix of content and no idea what to expect.

The solution

Support at every turn—from planning to rehearsals to professional production.

The impact

An audience enthralled by broadcast-quality video and a team excited to launch the next virtual event.

Rising together, virtually

Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco is a community-based organization that offers high-quality programs to help at-risk youth prepare for successful futures. As the summer of 2020 drew to a close, the organization’s staff had been working overtime for months to continue providing essential services when most locations were closed. Doners had gone above and beyond to keep programs running. 

Denise Wang-Kline, Vice President of Development, set out to celebrate the enormous efforts staff and doners had put forth—and provide a welcome opportunity for the community to come together. Of course, the event had to happen online: a first for BGCSF.

A chance meeting=a partnership with Brandlive

As Wang-Kline was envisioning the BGCSF, she was invited to be a guest at a virtual event for President Biden’s campaign—an event that Brandlive hosted and produced. Impressed with the production, Wang-Kline and her team reached out to Brandlive with their vision: “Together We Rise.” 

The event would celebrate BGCSF’s work during the first six months of the pandemic, including presentations from youth, staff, parents, and BGCSF leadership—plus musical performances by four young artists from the BGCSF. Time for Brandlive’s pros to go to work and make BGCSF’s vision a reality!

Challenges solved

1. Way beyond a basic video conference.“Together We Rise” was a big celebration—so it called for special sparkle. “It had to be more than a ‘video-conference’ virtual event,” said Wang-Kine. “We wanted a high-quality streaming platform with a dynamic event page, a first-in-class broadcast viewing experience, and on-staff production expertise and support. Brandlive checked all those boxes.”
2. End-to-end support.“This was our first foray into virtual events, so this was all new,” Wang-Kline explained. The Brandlive experts pulled out all the stops to support the BGCSF team as they took to the digital stage. “It was a big relief to work with the professional team at Brandlive, who provided such a high level of customer attention throughout event planning and production.”
3. Virtual event video production ease.Being new to virtual, the BGCSF team was nervous about the production process. Using Greenroom gave them a powerful platform for running the event, and the Brandlive team was there every step of the way to ease backstage butterflies. “The Brandlive team was willing to meet with us as often as needed to help us acclimate to the Greenroom—they were great,” Wang-Kline reflected. “They walked us through as many rehearsals as we wanted.”
4. Professional content mix.Brandlive’s expert production team helped BGCSF pull together a combination of pre-recorded videos and record content in Greenroom—creating a seamless presentation from a broad range of content.Wang-Kline explained the importance of having a professional team on hand: “When we made the late decision to change our show format and record a panel in Greenroom, the team not only accommodated our request, but also edited the piece perfectly”

Big wins

1. TV-quality production values.Wow-worthy video production garnered bravos from attendees and the BGCSF team alike. Wang-Kline observed, “Feedback from the audience was positive, and the show had a high level of professional production quality and feel to it—unlike a ‘Zoom’ event.”
2. Seamless, engaging virtual experience.Delivering a friction-free experience from beginning to end was a high priority for Wang-Kline and the BGCSF team. “We wanted a seamless experience for people to register for the event and direct confirmation of their registration from the platform. The Brandlive registration process did that.”In addition, Wang-Kline said, “We wanted to make sure that the viewing experience was seamless and that content was presented in a way that was engaging with the audience. Brandlive delivered on both of those points.”

   “The content produced and the high quality broadcast kept the viewers’ attention. The chat feature was also fun and viewers engaged with each other.”

3. An enthralled audience.“Since it was our first ever virtual event, we didn’t set any expectations,” Wang-Kline said. But the team was delighted by the number of guests—and how engaged they were throughout the event. “The content produced and the high quality broadcast kept the viewers’ attention. The chat feature was also fun and viewers engaged with each other.”Seeing the sticking power of their content was exciting for BGCSF. As Wang-Kline noted, “Having 250+ registrants stay on for the majority of the show, with an estimated 700 viewers that night, exceeded our expectations.”
4. Gearing up for the next big virtual event.BGCSF is excited to build on the success of Together We Rise—and to leverage even more of Brandlive’s features.“For our next event, we have lots of exciting plans,” Wang-Kline said. “We’ll integrate fundraising and VIP rooms into the event. The virtual private rooms will let VIPs view the show in a more exclusive way. We aim to have even more guests at this event—and to exceed our fundraising goal of $550K.”