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The Group Travel Leader Going on Faith Select Traveler

What convention centers can do, tech-wise

Courtesy Virginia Beach Convention Center

• This summer, the Virginia Beach Convention Center in Virginia Beach, Va., was the site of 12 high school graduations. The center streamed video to the Internet so that parents who are serving in Iraq could see their son or daughter graduate.

• Virginia Beach also set up Internet access in a ballroom so that 1,000 attendees at a tech conference could play Second Life, a 3D virtual world where they could socialize and connect.

• When a keynote speaker came down with double pneumonia the day before the speaker was to appear at the North Carolina Republican State Convention, the Wilmington Convention Center in Wilmington, N.C., came to the rescue by figuring out how to Skype the presentation on two Jumbotrons in the center’s ballroom. The screens were already in place for the general session and voting. If the speech had been cancelled, refunds would have been required to the keynote speaker’s sponsors. The center’s third-party supplier, Strategic Connections, worked with the client and with a provider  in the speaker’s home city, to set up the presentation using Skype.