I work for a software company and the powers that be would like to offer a video stream of portions of our User Conference. They were looking at hiring someone to do it, but I've suggested that buying a camera and tripod and repurposing a laptop for a few days wouldn't cost a lot, and then we have the equipment to do it again in the future.
This is lectures in a convention center's meeting rooms, it doesn't have to look dazzling, just a reasonable stream of the information for people who can't make the trip.
Any ideas for a budget camera for this purpose? There is a music event with employee bands performing at the end of the conference, and that may be streamed for kicks, but concert environments aren't really the concern here.