As many of you already know, Live365, with the help of dozens of other industry leaders, is sponsoring an unprecedented, completely virtual and completely free, conference for the audio industry called World Audio Day, which will take place on Tuesday, April 21, 2020. This day will feature 15 different panels composed of over 40 industry professionals donating their time in the name of education and information sharing. The entire thing is being hosted via Zoom from the comfort of everyone’s homes and is open to the public for no cost at all.
With that in mind, I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little bit about the backstory of World Audio Day and how it was started.
At Live365 (and our parent company Media Creek), we are very passionate about the audio community in its many forms. Within our team, we have broadcasters, podcasters, production engineers, and essentially all forms of audiophiles. So the audio industry and community isn’t just our business, it’s an extension of our family.
So, for several months we have been kicking around the idea of hosting a free virtual event to give back to the community. The goal of this event would be to bring all ends of audio into one awesome event of information sharing. We had started down the path and were willing to embark on the challenge of hosting an unprecedented virtual conference, hoping to plan it for sometime later in 2020.
The ensuing COVID-19 pandemic created a new normal for us all and forced the cancellation of all in-person conferences for the time being. This included the largest annual gathering for the audio industry - the NAB Show - who was forced to cancel this year’s event set to take place in late April.
With everything happening in the world, it was clear that the audio community needed an event that brought everyone together now more than ever. So we started to expedite the process to put something together as quickly as humanly possible. On April 3rd, we announced World Audio Day would be coming and we rushed to solve the many logistical challenges to organize a completely virtual event in 1 months time.
It’s been a frantic few weeks attempting to execute this event in such a short period of time. We have been overwhelmed with the support we have gotten from the industry. Dozens of businesses and industry leaders have stepped up to volunteer their time to join us for panels and help with the event. And the initial response from the community has been fantastically positive.
With that being said, please keep in mind that hosting a completely virtual event for the community is a relatively new concept, so there may be a few kinks along the way. For instance, panelists may run into internet issues or family distractions, there may be minor technical difficulties or issues with the quality of the video, and there is a 99.99% chance that someone’s dog will bark during an event throughout the day. Please bear with us through those minor challenges of hosting a completely virtual, multi-panel event.
I hope you’ll join us on Tuesday, April 21 and help us turn World Audio Day into something very special for the Audio community. We’ve quickly set up a website where you can register for the main event area - WorldAudioDay.com - and we will be updating this website throughout the duration of the event and leading up to it. This event is completely free of charge and totally virtual, so all you need is your computer or cell phone to watch it. In addition to Zoom, we will be broadcasting the event Live to Facebook - www.facebook.com/events/1106739433015857/
See you (virtually) on Tuesday!
Justin Ruoff - VP, Operations
