Stockport Homes

Formed in 2005, Stockport Homes are a part of the Stockport Homes Group and are passionate about not only providing housing and building new homes in Stockport, but helping to transform the lives of their customers. Their ASPIRE culture embodies ambition, social responsibility, passion, innovation, respect, and excellence; and each day they seek to deliver their services whilst ensuring that they are continually striving to achieve their mission of being one team and transforming lives.

After having worked with Stockport Homes in previous years to deliver their live in person conference and awards, and more recently during the delivery of their first virtual conference- we were invited once again to help support them in taking their 2020 ASPIRE Awards Festive Ball virtual. Unlike their virtual conference Stockport Homes which was streamed live from the Studio, they wanted to deliver their Festive Ball direct from their office location meaning that a pop-up studio solution was required. Further to this they really wanted to bring Christmas to the screens and homes of their attendees, whilst also emulating the social and interactive experience of attending an awards as closely as possible. Their vision was to ‘seat’ guests at virtual tables, so that they could chat and catch up whilst watching the festively themed awards. After working closely with Stockport Homes throughout, the end result was a fantastically festive Awards Ceremony and Christmas Ball providing guests with the opportunity to connect, catch up and enjoy a well-deserved evening of entertainment and recognition. We utilised our suite of technical expertise to build a pop-up style studio that included a snowy backdrop, large LCD screen to host slides and acceptance speeches, and custom-built LED frame Christmas trees to bring the all-important festive look and feel. The set was also designed so that it was wide enough to accommodate socially distanced presentations from multiple people, with integrated large comfort monitor screens to enhance interactivity and enable presenters to see and engage with the team members as they joined from home. The utilisation of HD camera kits and professional audio systems, alongside high-powered laptops and MacBooks for content playback, switchers, live streaming and encoding hardware, enabled us to deliver a live stream boasting optimum production value. As per Stockport Homes vision, when not watching the broadcast, guests enjoyed the evening chatting and playing quizzes in their pre-assigned zoom breakout room ‘tables’.

Overall, the evening was a great success with over 400 employees tuning in via two calls due to Zoom restrictions, and with the awards being simultaneously live streamed to both.