What’s the great idea? Virtually divide one large meeting space into several smaller breakout rooms.

Who’s doing it? AIM Group International.

What’s involved? Faced with the challenge of organizing a client’s conference for 700 attendees in one large expo hall with no breakout rooms, AIM utilized the “silent room” system to divide up the space.

“We created three different areas in the main meeting room, with three different colors,” says Ludovica Villa, vice president at AIM Group’s New York office. “There were signs on the carpet dividing the room, and colored dots on the attendees’ name badges to let them know which room they should report to.”

In each “room,” attendees and speakers used headphones set to a specific channel so they would hear only the people in their room talking and to block out noise from the other rooms nearby. Microphones allowed for discussions to take place among attendees and speakers in each room.

What are people saying? “It was a very creative solution, and the client was so happy and received a lot of compliments,” Villa says. “The attendees appreciated the concept very much. Technology and connectivity worked together to give the perfect solution for that venue.”—Rob Stott

(iStock/Thinkstock)