Virtual WT show/modellers hour?

76043

Western Thunderer
and I appreciate that you raised the issue as it is something that I have been looking into recently. Not just in the hobby area but in my day job as well. For some reason within my business I seemed to have picked up the mantle of being a Matlab/Simulink guru and frequently organise and present various technical seminars so it's something I've had a little experience of. It is something I have looked at and considered for different groups in different scenarios.

So to contribute a few random thoughts to the thread from myself for consideration.

  • Historically to the best of my knowledge WT has never really had any presence at any physical show, with the sole exception of supporting LarkRail. Where in the past Cynric used to organise a table to display members projects and provide a point of contact for discussion.
  • I've had a look at a couple of the "virtual shows" that have been organised. I need to look at some of the more recent ones but the early ones I struggled with. As I have said before they were interesting but frustrating. It was like a normal exhibition to me but just an endless stream of consciousness. If I dipped into "the show" I might find something interesting but it seemed just like pot luck at times what I could see.
  • I have joined a couple of the 2mmSA zoom meetings and I really did enjoy them. To have a dozen modellers online in a chat was really good fun. It was great to see and chat with modellers from around the globe, from Australia to USA and a few from around the corner in Harrogate. It was inspirational and got me motivated to move some of my 2mm projects along. Unfortunately I've had a couple of blood bike shifts on the weekend so have been unable to make the last few.
  • Work related - we had a Matlab/Simulink technical presentation - this was conducted via Webex. The Webex software despite a slightly clunky interface did actually work really well. The video was good and the control and chat room features added to the event. The one thing it did highlight is that for anything like this you cannot run it as an individual. For the workshop we had one person to compère the meeting, they responded to chat room questions, sorted out the technical side etc. and left the presentation to another engineer.
  • The thing I find as the biggest difference between the physical shows and the virtual shows is the ability to walk around the exhibits and stands in the order that interests me. As I walk into a show I want to pick and choose which stands and exhibits to visit. If one stand is too busy then I would walk past and return to it at a later point. I haven't seen any virtual show where I can do this.
  • Zoom - whilst excellent for the service it provides is extremely dodgy software to install on your computer, in the past it installed some really insidious spyware so I really don't trust it and will only access the system via a web browser.
  • Google hangouts looks really good and is privacy friendly but does insist on only allowing users with google accounts to access it so might limit some people from accessing the service if they don't have a google account.

My reservations with the current "virtual show" format were brought into context on the Gauge O Guild forum. It became apparent to some of us that the Gauge O Guild main show, Guildex, was probably going to be cancelled planned as it was for the end of August. So some of us started discussing a "virtual Guildex". In this discussion I raised the issue of having a format which allowed users to wander around the virtual show in a similar way that they would do in a physical show and I suggested an alternative format.

My idea was that they could have a show guide in pdf format in exactly the same way you would have for a physical show. Each stand, trader, layout in the show guide would be an active hyperlink. This link would then take you to a little zoom meeting or youTube video or Webex conference or Microsoft Team meeting or Google hangout etc hosted by the trader or demonstrator. So as a visitor you can then pick and choose which exhibit or trader you want to visit when you want by clicking on a suitable link in the show guide. Each trader could use Zoom/Microsoft/Google/Webex video conferencing system of their choice to host a little chat room and video area. These systems will struggle to cope if all the show visitors descended on them at the same time but allowing people to dip in and out would keep them at useful little groups. The idea for demonstrators is that they could arrange a timetable of events for the different demonstrators. So if I were to do a demo on silver soldering I could say the demo was to be run 3 or 4 times a day for an hour, say 10am 12 noon, 2am and 4am. So as a visitor you can then pick and choose which demonstrator to visit at a time of day that suits yourself.

So please forgive me for a little hubris but I'm pleased to say that the Guild seems to have picked up on my suggestion and have something along these lines planned for this years Guildex - the only disappointing issue is that it is planned for the end of October. It would have been nice to aim for something sooner end of August beginning of September but there is a lot of work so it is understandable.

So I'm not proposing to organise a "WT virtual show" - just not got enough free time to be honest - but I am willing to try a virtual chat or online video event if people are interested. Alternatively if you know of a virtual show being organised then I am willing to host a virtual table for people to dip in and have a chat.

As always - feedback and comments are more than welcome.

Thanks Adrian for your comprehensive thoughts. I too am involved in the organisation of a professional association conference and have used Matlab in the past for image processing, I don't envy the latter.

I like your PDF guide idea, with a published "timetable" as it were, this seems to be an excellent solution. For our professional conference we are going to space out the talks across a longer period of a month, to give delegates a break from relentless virtual video meetings, which they already will have had enough of. So it's possible a model railway show could be held over a period of a month say?

On Google Meet, the free version does require attendee's to have a Google account, but all the paid versions currently do not have this requirement. I can host events via my work account for up to 250 people and live streamed at the same time to up to 100,000.

I wasn't really suggesting WT start a show and the Admins take on all the work, but maybe a gang of willing Western Thunderer's might? (I'd volunteer) But there is likely to be a cost to this to get anything off the ground, so this is where I think the idea ends as WT isn't an organisation with a bank account. (that I'm aware of anyway)

So thanks for your thoughts Adrian and we'll park it here.
Cheers
Tony
 
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