Another observation was that whenever every speaker wanted to start his/her presentation, it would take a few minutes to setup their laptops as they would be connected to the vga cable on stage.
That was mainly because the speakers did not let us know whether they would require a computer beforehand. It was only when they started to walk towards the microphone would they let their desires be known. Add to that the confusion when someone would want to give a presentation about Free Software and Free Knowledge, which they had made on proprietary applications, on their own machines running MacOS.
Setting up the VGA cable was not a major issue. :-)
Instead of all this wiring, is it possible to use the wireless LAN to broadcast the video-out directly to the projector through a receiver interface?
There was no wireless LAN in the auditorium.
However your initial idea does sound interesting.
Regards, Debarshi