How to organise a video conference or teleconference

1. Assign a Conference Organiser
2. Book all video conference rooms
3. Book the Bridge
4. Wait for confirmation
5. Check Bookings Calendar
6. Conference setup

A note on booking a series of conferences:

• The Conference Organiser should email all participants to ask them, within a few days, to book their video conferencing room using our contacts and inform the Organiser which room they booked.
• The Organiser can then book the video conference (Bridge) using our Online Booking Form.

1. Assign a Conference Organiser

One person should be given the task of booking the video conference conference, to co-ordinate the date, attendees, sites, and bridge. The first time a person sets up a videoconference is always the hardest.

Please contact us if you need help or advice at any stage.

2. Book ALL Video Conference Rooms

Videoconferencing involves using numerous venues, and often requires a Bridge (MCU) to join the sites together. You need to choose venues based on where your participants are located, what type of equipment and room your require, and availability.

Each venue needs to be individually booked by contacting the relevant Booking Person for the room. This should be done prior to booking the Bridge, as the Bridge can handle numerous conferences at the same time.

Note: If you plan to show presentation material during the conference, please call us first.

3. Book the Bridge

The conference needs to be booked using our online Booking Form if the conference involves our Bridge or any of our sites (University of Sydney or one of our Joint Venture Partner AHS sites).

Speaker phones are available for loan by the Helpdesk. Please note if you require this in the booking form.

Bookings for urgent conferences can be done by telephone.

Book Bridge now

4. Confirmation

Once the Online Booking Form is submitted, we will check your booking and email the confirmation to:

• the conference organiser
• the conference convenor
• the Booking Person/s related to each of our requested sites
• and to external sites involved where you have provided emails for.

We will request any additional information we think necessary.

Charging applies for after hours bridging, conferences for external organisations, and dialling ISDN sites.

You can :

• at your convenience, check any bookings that have been processed by visiting the Bookings Calendar.
• request any changes to current bookings by sending an email to and to the Conference Organiser.

5. Conference setup

Prior testing for new external sites
External sites which have NOT had a conference with us before need to be tested, preferably a day before the conference.

To arrange testing, we will be requesting information from the Conference Organiser.

On the day
Depending on the difficulty of the conference, we typically begin setup of the conference and dialling the sites approximately 15 minutes before starting time.

It is strongly advised that all participants arrive at least 10 minutes before the start time, so that their video conferencing codec, camera and microphones are setup properly, and have been given our telephone contact number in case of problems.

We will set up the conference, and then supervise at least the start. Requests and advice by us will be phoned through to sites or said directly into the conference.