Local government depends on spaces where elected representatives can debate, vote, and make formal decisions transparently. For the Municipality of Almelo in the Netherlands, modernizing the audiovisual environment in its City Hall (stadhuis) was essential to support modern governance. The project encompassed the primary Council Chamber (raadzaal) as well as the associated Stad and Ambt meeting rooms and Committee Room, which host both in-person and hybrid political sessions.
Awarded in August 2024 with a project value exceeding EUR 400,000, the municipality sought a single partner capable of taking full turnkey responsibility across all technical and operational domains. AVEX, the GPA team in the Netherlands, led the entire initiative, from system design and hardware supply to ICT network configuration, user training, and multi-stakeholder coordination. The goal was to replace aging equipment with a cohesive, future-ready infrastructure that works unobtrusively in the background so council members can focus entirely on governing.
When audiovisual systems fail in a standard corporate meeting room, the result is typically a minor delay. When technology fails inside a municipal council chamber, it threatens the legal validity of the democratic process itself. At Almelo City Hall, the legacy audiovisual installation had become severely outdated, struggling to support hybrid participation and lacking the rock-solid reliability required for formal council sessions.
Under Dutch law, municipal council meetings must be open to the public by default, and live webcasting has become a primary mechanism for fulfilling this legal mandate. Every citizen must be able to follow debates in real time, see how each elected representative votes, and access official meeting records. Consequently, an audio dropout, a frozen camera feed, or a disconnected voting terminal is not merely a technical inconvenience; it directly compromises public accountability.
Furthermore, upgrading a live government environment carries intense integration risks. The audiovisual hardware cannot operate in isolation; it must communicate seamlessly with the municipality’s existing Council Information System (Raadsinformatiesysteem, or RIS) and public webcasting platform. Coordinating these specialized software layers alongside facility management, the municipal council office (griffie), and building contractors required deep public-sector expertise to avoid disruptive delays during the transition.
To eliminate technical vulnerability and embed legal transparency directly into the room architecture, the engineering team designed a fully integrated, AV-over-IP ecosystem across both the Council Chamber and the Committee Room. At the heart of the solution is MVI AudioVisual’s meeting management software (VMS), which establishes a bi-directional link between the physical room hardware, the municipal RIS, and the public webcast. Agendas, participant lists, motions, and voting sessions prepared in the RIS load automatically into the room system. In contrast, live voting results flow directly back into the RIS to be stored as the official public record.
Key Deliverables:
Council Chamber Discussion and Voting Array: 49 discussion microphone units and a chairperson station featuring smart access-card identification and transparent digital voting.
Automated Camera Tracking and Projection: Six PTZ tracking cameras and an overview camera in the main chamber paired with three high-brightness laser projectors and a line array loudspeaker system over an AV-over-IP backbone.
Committee Room Standardization: A parallel 19-microphone discussion and voting setup integrated with a three-camera PTZ tracking system, wireless microphones, and a 98-inch 4K LED display.
Bi-Directional RIS and Webcast Integration: MVI AudioVisual software linking agendas, speaking timers, ad-hoc amendments, and individual or party-level voting results directly with the public livestream and official municipal record.
Centralized Touch-Panel Control: Identical dual touch-panel interfaces (21-inch and 10-inch) in both rooms that allow administrators to manage complex debates, documents, and streams from a single screen.
In the circular Council Chamber, 49 discussion microphone units were deployed alongside a dedicated chairperson unit equipped with access-card identification and digital voting capabilities. When a council member speaks or casts a vote, an integrated array of six PTZ cameras plus an overview camera automatically tracks the active participant, displaying live speaking times and voting tallies across three high-brightness laser projectors and the public livestream. The adjacent Committee Room mirrors this exact operational logic on a more compact scale, ensuring complete consistency across the building.
Project Execution:
Delivering a legally sensitive integration between August 2024 and January 2025 without disrupting municipal operations required an unconventional approach to project execution. Rather than building and troubleshooting the complex software and hardware links on-site at Almelo City Hall, the integration team constructed the entire system beforehand inside a dedicated test laboratory at their headquarters in Breukelen.
Through this comprehensive Proof of Concept, the council office, system administrators, and end users were invited to experience and test the complete setup one-to-one before physical installation. Working side by side in the test lab, the engineers and municipal staff refined the control logic, customized the touch-panel interfaces to match real-world parliamentary procedures, and verified every transparency requirement.
As Maico Klaas, Senior Adviser Facilities and Building Management at the Municipality of Almelo, noted, preparing the entire system in-house allowed them to integrate specific requirements upfront and delivered enormous time savings on site. When the equipment arrived in Almelo, installation and ICT network commissioning proceeded rapidly and predictably, aligning all external software suppliers and building contractors under a single point of responsibility.
Delivered on schedule in January 2025, the modernized Council Chamber and Committee Room provide the Municipality of Almelo with a reliable, purpose-built environment for accountable local governance. The bi-directional integration between the discussion hardware, the RIS, and the webcasting platform has transformed a collection of separate tools into a single, cohesive workflow.
During formal sessions, council members insert their access cards, speak, and cast their votes while automated camera tracking, speaking timers, and visual projection handle the presentation layer automatically. Both citizens seated in the public gallery and residents watching from home enjoy crystal-clear audio and immediate visibility into every motion and vote. By involving end users early during the laboratory Proof of Concept, staff adopted the new touch-panel controls with complete confidence from the very first session.
In local government, the most critical work rarely happens between nine and five. Municipal council and committee debates almost always take place on weekday evenings, right when standard corporate technical support desks are closed. For a council clerk managing a legally mandated public broadcast at night, a sudden technical issue without immediate expert backup creates immense operational stress.
To ensure the Municipality of Almelo is never left vulnerable during live evening sessions, the project is backed by a specialized public-sector Service Level Agreement that has been active since 2025. This support model gives the municipality direct access to an after-hours Skilled Service Desk staffed by audiovisual specialists who are specifically trained in municipal meeting systems and RIS functionality.
Built around the fast tempo of a live political debate, incoming support calls during weekday evenings are answered by a qualified specialist within 30 seconds, followed by a clear technical diagnosis and action plan within 10 minutes. Whether deploying an immediate remote fix or initiating a functional workaround so the debate can continue uninterrupted, this dedicated evening safeguard removes the reliance on a single internal expert and guarantees that technology always serves the democratic process. If your public institution or enterprise requires mission-critical integration backed by tailored operational support anywhere in the world, our global teams are ready to deliver.
