It could be months before we see a return to large public events, conventions, and festivals.

An audio visual company in Gates needed to drum up business, so it added a new platform to help more businesses go high-tech virtual.

The reality is that large business conventions and trade shows are all likely going to have to happen virtually. 

Cheshire Audio Visual is doing what it can to help those virtual events look and sound their best. 

Justin Cheshire and his team built a new hybrid streaming studio. Think of it as a main stage without an in-person audience. The audience is either at home or in multiple locations around the world in smaller groups.

"The virtual studio is completely customizable," Cheshire said. "It can display any graphic, any video or anything you throw at us. It is really endless on the possibilities. We've got professional lighting, professional audio and it provides the back and forth to stream to any platform for our clients."

This is a major change for a business that is built around large, live national events, corporate meetings, and tradeshows.

"Our existing client base could be a national association, or guest speaker who has travel restrictions," Cheshire said. "It could be a panel of executives at a corporate team who want to preproduce or live stream their message out to their remote team."

"So, it is open to anybody," Cheshire said. "We are hoping to gain a new client base through this. Once COVID hit, we definitely needed to transition and still offer the high level of service we give our clients but in a virtual way."

Cheshire A/V also has a mobile, at-home system with all the bells and whistles of lighting cameras and audio. 

This is yet another business pivoting during this pandemic and doing what it can to help other businesses go virtual, successfully.