CONTEXT
The MVP Global Summit is Microsoft’s annual opportunity to connect with and celebrate its Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs), a community of technical third-party professionals that Microsoft relies on for indispensable current and future product feedback, advocacy, and community health. And it’s the MVP community’s chance to connect with, and be inspired by, some of Microsoft’s best and brightest. 

The event brings nearly 2,000 attendees to the live event, with breakout sessions and keynotes and networking across four days. However, this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the live event was shifted to a virtual event with only two weeks to prepare.  

OUR APPROACH
Touch was brought in just one week before the conference to help execute the four-day virtual event. Our team worked tirelessly with the MVP team to assess the current agenda and content in order to produce the MVP Live program as a live digital broadcast event. 

In a dramatic new strategic approach, Microsoft decided to host the event entirely in Microsoft Teams. To do so, they set up multiple concurrent streams for the event and all attendees were able to connect and move around from the main MVP Live channel, which Touch produced, to over 25 concurrent virtual event streams. Some of these were produced live locally at two linked studios on the Microsoft campus while others were 100% virtual—and some were a combination of both.

Our team developed the new run of show for the MVP Live program to keep the virtual event just as engaging as the previous live shows, and to capitalize on the additional content opportunities that digital delivery provides. Five hosts provided session recaps, live interviews, and demos—to add to this, Touch concepted, shot, and produced twelve different videos while onsite during the conference to enliven the MVP Live channel. This included lively, humorous featurettes on each of the show’s hosts, and messages from CVP, Jeff Sandquist. 

The virtual event included 440 unique sessions, with 754 total sessions including time zone repeats and executive keynotes, and it provided Microsoft with vital strategic input from this critical global community to help inform the future of Teams and all of its products and services.