| Date: 5th October 2021 |
| Location: Portugal |
| Event: Virtual Event |
| Technology: virtual set |
Portuguese company Mainvision thrives with Ventuz in pandemic times
Our lives changed in March 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic, and even more for the Live events market. The restrictions imposed by the health and security authorities, including a total lockdown in many countries, brought the entire event industry to a halt from one day to the other.
The pandemic situation had even a bigger impact on small countries like Portugal, where Mainvision was one of the reference companies making live events for corporate and entertainment projects. This meant that it was time to react quickly to stay in business, and the only possible business in those trouble times were Virtual events, so the Mainvision team led by Jorge Sousa and Mario Bocke analyzed the situation and took the decision to bet on virtual events.
Founded in Lisbon (Portugal) in 2009, Mainvision follows the vision of Jorge Sousa, a renown professional in the Portuguese AV market with more than 20 years of experience, including working as a camera operator, video producer and even DJ. Initially the company focused on a broad range of live events, from corporate to music gigs to festivals, but as the company evolved, they focused on corporate events, and they finally became one of the main actors in the Portuguese market.
In the spring of 2020, Mainvision pivoted and began producing Virtual events. After the what came the how: How could they repurpose their extensive technical knowledge to design a similar, yet different workflow for virtual events.
After extensive research and testing, they decided that Ventuz software, due to its openness, reliability and affordability, compared to other solutions, was the best option.
“We had previously tested Ventuz and tried to use it briefly for some projects a while ago, and always had the feeling that we didn´t use it to its max”, states Mainvision Technical Director, Jorge Sousa. “When we decided that virtual events where the way to go, we checked Ventuz again and were really shocked about how much the software had evolved in these years. The usability was greatly improved, the toolset was more mature and streamlined, and what was more important for us, it had all the tools we needed to bring our own virtual events to life at a very reasonable price”.
“For the kind of virtual events that we had in mind, it was necessary to create a lot of 3D models in Cinema 4D, and the Ventuz-Cinema 4D Live link was a lifesaver for us. Having this quick data-sharing technology between both applications was crucial for us to make changes in the original C4D models and see them in the final Ventuz output immediately. It allowed us to work a lot faster”, says Mario Bocke, responsible for the Graphics creation at Mainvision.
“After we adopted the Ventuz software we started creating virtual events in less than two months, with no previous experience in those workflows, that is pretty remarkable, and it was only possible with the highly motivated team we have at Mainvision and the amazing possibilities that Ventuz offered us. Our company wouldn’t have survived the COVID- 19 crisis without these two key ingredients”, continues Jorge Sousa.
The future looks bright for Mainvision
After having produced dozens of virtual events over the past months, now the business is expanding and getting into the Hybrid and Live events market again, while keeping the Virtual events in place. Business has gone so well that Mainvision is growing rapidly, adding new staff and even building a second, bigger studio at their Lisbon head office, for all kinds of events. The new studio premiered with a big corporate event for Microsoft, that combined virtual and live/hybrid sessions, and even a gig by Portuguese band “The Black Mamba”.
Jorge Sousa and the rest of the Mainvision team have shown what you can achieve with passion, determination and forward thinking, and a little help from Ventuz too. “I´ve been involved in the Mainvision virtual events transition from the beginning, and I´m really proud of seeing how our tools helped Jorge and his team to stay in business, and even grow, in these hard pandemic times. This is a great inspiration for all of us at Ventuz to keep on working to produce top notch graphics creation solutions that will help our customers to fulfill their vision in the future”,
Get more detailed information on the Mainvision website and YouTube channel.
