Town Hall for 1,500 Employees - Hybrid Simultaneous Interpreting

The challenge

A large organisation needed to hold a single company-wide Town Hall for 1,500 employees taking place simultaneously in two physical locations, with a significant number of participants also joining online.

Speakers used three different languages, employees needed to ask questions in their own language, and the same message had to reach everyone at exactly the same time with high accuracy and minimal delay.

Town Hall for 1,500 Employees - Hybrid Simultaneous Interpreting

We designed a complete hybrid technical and interpreting setup that combined local presence with central remote production.

What we delivered

Two dedicated technical teams worked on site - one at each location.
A central team operated from our REMI studio.

The REMI team coordinated the overall signal flow, mixed audio, video, media and presentation sources from both venues and from online participants, and produced the final programme shown on the large screens in both locations as well as on the screen of the participants online.

Technical coordination

The event ran on a large Zoom meeting.

All participant microphones were muted by default to maintain control and audio quality.

Online attendees were brought into the physical venues via carefully managed Tiles for Zoom so that people in the rooms could see and react to their remote colleagues.

Reactions from online participants appeared on the screens, creating a genuine shared experience.

A special moderator role managed the Q&A process in real time, filtering incoming questions and chat messages.

Zoom environment

Live polls were handled with the Zoom Graphics Tool Kit.

Selected poll results, chosen Q&A questions and important chat messages were displayed graphically on the large screens in both locations, ensuring everyone - on site and online - saw the same information at the same moment.

Polls and interactive elements

Six professional interpreters worked entirely online in a pure-booths configuration (no relay interpreting). This was a strict requirement to guarantee the highest possible accuracy and the shortest possible delay.

Interpreters received a clean video feed of the active speaker and the presentation slides.

In Zoom attendess had three languages to choose from: Polish, English and German.
The interpreters worked in pairs: Two for Polish <==> English, two for Polish <==> German and two for English <==> German.

This setup for provide to avoid using relay and causing deterioration of the interpretation quality and maintaing delay to a minimum.

On-site, we distributed the three language channels via Bosch's Decentis Symultaneous Interpretation system with Dante. We used Zoom ISO to get the interpretation channels out of Zoom over Dante and feed them into the Bosch Decentis system for distribution over their infrared communication systems Bosch Integrus. This allowed for easy choice of channels by attendees and secure transmission of CD quality.

Interpreting setup

The combination of local technical teams, central REMI production, controlled Zoom interaction and six online pure-booth interpreters enabled smooth two-way communication across 1,500 people.

The client successfully delivered one consistent message to the entire organisation at the same time, with clear interpretation and full interactive capability.

Need help choosing the right form of interpretation for your event?

Write to us or call - we will advise free of charge which option is best in terms of time, cost and participant experience.