The traditional conference room has long been one of the most important rooms for any business. A place for ideas to be shared, sales to be finalized, and work to be done. That hasn’t changed much over the past 50 years, but what has changed is the technology. Gone are the days where all you needed was a conference room table, office furniture, and a speakerphone. 95% of meeting rooms have minimal technology and aren’t really ready for the current shift in communication.

Now, with video conferencing here to stay, a modern conference room needs high quality microphones, speakers, and cameras in addition to the large table and chairs. You’ll likely be sharing ideas with presentations, so you’ll need a large screen that everyone, including those not in the room, can see. You’ll need to be able to share that presentation from your own computer, laptop, or tablet.

And it all needs to work together easily so that your employees don’t waste time fighting with the technology.

Here are some high tech conference room ideas to bring your meeting space into 2024.

 

A Large Display

Let’s face it, nobody is printing up a dozen copies of their presentation anymore to pass out to everyone at the meeting. Your presentation is going to be done digitally, which means you need a large display so that everyone in the room can easily see your hard work.

The size and type of display is going to change depending on the specifics of your room. For smaller meeting rooms, it could be as simple as wall-mounting an LCD display that can clearly be seen by everyone. But for large conference rooms, or rooms where you can’t mount a giant TV, a projector is what you need.

The Barco G60 series of projectors offer great image quality, are easy to install, and have lower maintenance costs than other comparable projectors on the market. You can combine the Barco G60 projector with a Barco Clickshare Conference device, allowing anyone to share their screen with the touch of a button.

 

A High Quality Microphone

Those built-in microphones for your laptop or tablet are barely good enough for one-on-one calls and are not a viable option for your conference room. You’ll need to install professional microphones so that anyone on the other side of your video conference call can clearly hear everyone inside of the conference room.

Some of the biggest music stars in history have used Shure microphones on the stage and in the studio, but Shure is also known for producing high-end mics for the conference room. And with products like the Shure MXA920 Ceiling Array microphone, you can have that great studio sound in every meeting.

Because they are installed in the ceiling of the conference room, not only does it facilitate a clutter-free space, but it ensures maximum input. Boasting Automatic Coverage technology that requires no set up makes installation a breeze. You’ll be back to your brainstorming sessions in no time.

 

High-Quality Speakers

Now that the callers on the other end of the line can hear you, it’s time to make sure that everyone in the conference room can hear your callers. The QSC AcousticDesign series of loudspeakers come in a variety of designs, sizes, and colors to seamlessly cover even the largest rooms in clear audio.

There are three main styles of AcousticDesign speakers to choose from: surface mount, pendant mount, or recess ceiling mount. These loudspeakers were designed for clarity and presence and are easy to install thanks to the award-winning X-Mount system. Not only will these loudspeakers be perfect for your video conferencing needs, but will be perfect for internal presentations, or even background music.

 

An Easy-to-Use Camera

Next up, you need a camera that can capture everything happening in the conference room. QSC and Q-SYS have a variety of PTZ cameras specifically designed for a modern conference room. PTZ stands for Pan-Tilt-Zoom, meaning you’ll have full control over what the camera shows. You can mount the camera so that it can easily video everyone sitting around the conference table, and then fine-tune the controls to feature one or two talkers, rather than the entire room.

And when you are not actively using the camera, you can protect your privacy by spinning the camera around to point at the wall. And better yet, these cameras work with a wide variety of platforms. Meaning you’ll be able to use it with Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or some other platform with just a USB connection to your computer.

 

Tying It All Together

Controlling all of these elements is made incredibly easy thanks to the Q-SYS ecosystem. Their TSC80 touchscreen controller allows intuitive control of everything, from the camera to the microphone. You can even control the projector with it. Raise and lower your screen, mute the microphones, pan and zoom the camera, turn the speakers’ volume up and down, it can all be done with the touch of a finger. And the touchscreen controller can be completely customized and branded for your needs.

Even smaller than the touchscreen is Shure’s MXA Mute Network button.  This little button was designed to be a quick and easy way to mute your microphones during a video conference. Tapping the button will mute or unmute your Shure networked audio products, making it extremely effective for those moments in meetings when you need to quickly turn your mics off in order to hold a brief private conversation. But the MXA Mute Network button is also compatible with third party control systems via programmable control strings, meaning you can do so much more than just mute your mics.

You can mute and unmute your speakers, program the device to turn your projector on and lower the screen, or even turn your camera on or off. You can even program the button to turn the lights in your room on or off. The ways you can use this little button are so numerous that Shure has released a version of the button without any microphone icon on it. Have one button without the icon to turn everything on in your conference room, and another button with the icon to mute your microphones!

 

Try For Yourself

Every business can benefit from a modern conference room, and the best conference rooms utilize new technology that allows us to work closer together, even if we’re not face to face. If you’re wondering what questions to ask when upgrading your meeting space, check out the 7 Questions Shure put together. The questions serve as a great starting point to bring your conference room into the modern era of virtual meetings.

If you have questions about what products are right for you or want to see for yourself how everything works, contact us here at Mainline Marketing. We would love to help guide you to the products that are right for you, and our Experience Center in Winter Park, FL allows you to see these products in person. We can even work with you to show you how a potential new product that you’re looking at will integrate and work with your current systems. Whether you’re looking to set up a conference room, a huddle room, a classroom or training room, or even a restaurant or retail space, we can help!