live event production Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

How to Host a Virtual Event: A Step-by-Step Guide

Alex Onion — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:00:00 +0000

At this point in our post-pandemic world, none of us are strangers to virtual events. From all-company meetings to virtual fundraisers to livestreams of in-person concerts, galas and more, we’ve all gotten pretty comfortable with watching events from the comfort of our own couches.

But when it comes to producing your own virtual event, lots of folks are still in the dark. And that’s okay — we’re here to help! Even if you’re planning a return to in-person events, the truth is that a virtual component is no longer optional. Allowing attendees to engage remotely expands your reach, makes your event more accessible, and helps you spread your message to those who may not have otherwise received it.

So after partnering with SmashFly Technologies to stream their event, Transform Virtual, we caught up with their Event Marketing Manager, Shannon Pierce, for her expert insights on how to plan a virtual event successfully. Here’s what she had to say.

How to Host a Virtual Event in 7 Easy Steps

1. Getting started

The first step in hosting a successful virtual event is to determine its theme and content. Branding and visual communication is one of the most important factors to consider as you start planning, and will determine all of your event messaging, speakers, marketing strategy, and more.

So start by outlining your goals and budget. What are you hoping to accomplish with your event, and what metrics will you measure to define your success? From there, outline the main talking points and tone you want your event to take.

For SmashFly, they wanted to leverage the success of a recent in-person event in an effort to continue to engage their audience.

“We hosted a super successful in-person conference – SmashFly Transform – and it created so much buzz we knew we had to do it again. The only problem was cost. In-person events can be incredibly expensive. We wanted to keep the momentum of Transform going and continue growing this community, but can we get everyone together virtually and still have a great event? Turns out you can!

Transform Virtual was branded the same, the virtual experience was just like our livestream experience from the Transform event and the content was presented by practitioners so it’s all peer-to-peer learning (same concept that was so well received at our in-person event).”

2. Outline your content

Once you have a general sense of what you’d like your event to look like, it’s time to get down to brass tacks. What kinds of content will you include in your event?

Just as with any event, your content should include a mixture of different presentation formats. This can include keynote presentations, breakout sessions, and panel discussions. And as Charlie Kennedy reminded us in another recent panel discussion, virtual events come with their own sets of challenges when it comes to programming. He says:

“We have to think of this like we’re producing a TV show. We have a much shorter amount of time to keep the viewer’s attention. Whereas in a ballroom, we always knew where people were, if they were paying attention or not — it’s a whole new challenge when we can’t see our audience.”

— Charlie Kennedy, Founder & Creative Director, Show Up Event Consulting

So it’s not enough to prepare a Powerpoint presentation and call it a day. We have to work a lot harder now to keep audiences engaged while they’re distracted with everything going on behind their computer screen. So think about how you might educate your audiences with interesting speakers, while also keeping them entertained and present. Here are just a few ideas to get you started:

Offer a panel discussion with a diverse range of voices, with the option for attendees to submit their own questions
Host a DJ set between speakers to drive energy
Run polls or quizzes during or between speakers
Organize a contest that attendees can vote on during the event (like this chef and mixologist competition at a Marriott-hosted event a few years ago)
Get people out of their seats with a virtual dance party

3. Choose your format

Next, it’s time to choose a format (or “container”). Where will your virtual event live? How will your audience engage with your content?

These days, there’s no shortage of options for hosting an event remotely. Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and LinkedIn all offer live streaming options, giving audiences the ability to react and comment on the content they’re viewing.

Other platforms like Zoom or Vimeo offer a bit more privacy if you’re looking to make your event feel exclusive, or if you’d prefer to pre-record all of your content beforehand. Here, attendees might be able to interact with each other in the chat, or click on links for more information about your brand. These platforms also offer accessibility features like closed captioning or alternative languages, making your event more approachable to more people.

For a fully immersive experience, consider licensing a virtual events platform like Hubilo, Hopin or cvent. While costly, these all-in-one platforms support virtual networking, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration, and built-in interactions that drive engagement through the roof.

Whatever platform you choose, make sure you do plenty of research to understand how the tech works before the big day. (We know this piece of the puzzle can feel like a lot — so we’re always here to support you with the right technology and help you produce a seamless event! Get in touch to learn more.)

4. Secure (and prep) your speakers

Once you’ve outlined your content and platform(s), do some research to determine who the best speakers would be for your event. Perhaps it’s a client, or someone who works for your company. Or maybe it’s a highly-regarded expert who can speak to your event topics. Going big? Maybe you book a big-name celebrity as your keynote speaker!

When your outreach is complete and you have commitments from your speakers that they’re willing to participate, the Mainstream team always recommends scheduling a “dry run” tech check call with speakers before the event (or pre-recording). This ensures they are comfortable with the recording software, have adequate internet speeds and proper lighting. It will also give you a chance to control the background of the speaker to avoid distracting images or bad patterns.

Shannon offers this helpful advice:

“Honestly, the hardest part about planning a virtual event is scheduling your speakers, internal stakeholders and your production team for all the calls that it takes to pull the event together.

Our goal was to have 3 calls with each speaker: first the kick-off call to introduce the event and discuss a topic, next a dry run to walk through the entire presentation and make content suggestions, and then the final session call as if they were presenting live.”

Set expectations with your internal stakeholders that they will need to be flexible to accommodate your speaker’s schedules during the weeks leading up to the event.

5. Promote your event

What’s an event with no attendees?

Before your big day, be sure to include marketing in your overall event strategy. It starts with a strong landing page where audience members can find more information and register.

From there, schedule promotional email blasts and social media posts. For larger events, maybe you’ll even reach out to local media to promote and help cover the event. Here’s what SmashFly did:

“In order to get the word out about Transform Virtual we used email marketing, mobilized our internal sales reps and customer success team to send personal invites to their accounts, social media including Twitter and announcements to our Transform Community Facebook Group, retargeting ads and partner marketing. Our content team was constantly writing tweets and sending them out internally and to our speakers to activate as many people as we could on social and make is super easy for them to spread the word.

One of the biggest differences between an in-person event and a virtual event is that the bulk of your registrations for a virtual event come the week prior to your go-live date. We heavily exceeded our registration goals, but over 50% registered in the last 4-5 days (including the day of!). It’s always a little stressful waiting for your pre-promotion campaigns to convert into registrants.”

Even though you may get a slew of registrations the week before the event, it’s still important to keep audience members engaged before you hit the “Go live” button. Send regular reminders to registrants with a sneak peek at what they can expect, and instructions for how to join on the day of the event.

6. Run your show

Congratulations! You’ve produced some exciting content with world-renowned subject matter experts. Whether you’re live or streaming pre-recorded content, the last step is to push “Start” on your event and engage with your audience in real time—by monitoring your social media outlets and responding to chats and Q&A during the event.

Think about what hashtags you might use to drive community conversation on social, and understand where your audience is spending the most time so that you can maximize their event experience and meet them where they are.

And if there are any questions that can’t be answered during your event, make sure you flag those too so that you can follow up with event attendees after the fact. No one likes to be left hanging!

7. Analyze, analyze, analyze!

Now that your event is over, it’s time to look at the data and see how it went. For SmashFly, they wanted to keep their audience watching the content as long as possible. Their average viewing time was about an hour, nearly twice the industry standard. Other points of data may include:

Email open rate
Total ticket sales (if paid), total registrations (if unpaid)
Conversion rate
Total audience size
Average view time per audience member
Engagement during broadcast (tweets, shares, comments, etc.)

With data in hand, you can understand how to make your next event even more successful.

Final Thoughts

With proper planning, SmashFly knocked their first virtual event out of the park. SmashFly leaves us with this wisdom:

“Besides the obvious need to deliver great content and work with your speakers very closely on their presentation development, make sure you have an awesome production partner if you plan to host a virtual event. You content could be awesome, but your production partner can help make the viewing experience more dynamic and interesting.”

If you have any further questions or would like Mainstream to produce your virtual event, feel free to get in contact with us! We’d love to share our expertise with you or even handle your entire virtual event from start to finish.

A previous version of this post was originally published on 7/28/17 by Brian Ciaccio.

A Comprehensive (And Animated!) Guide to Live Streaming Setups

Nick Bacon — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:52:54 +0000

Determining Your Optimal Setup for a 1-Camera Live Stream

While the majority of Mainstream Media’s live streams are multi-camera configurations, there are numerous situations where only one camera is needed. Events such as online learning modules, press conferences, electronic news gathering, and internal corporate broadcasts can be really successful with a simple one-camera setup.

If you have been asked to produce a one-camera webcast for your company – or you just want to cover a cool event that’s coming to your town – but don’t know where to begin, fear not! We’ll walk you through everything you need to know in order to have a successful broadcast.

The Fundamental Setup

First, let us quickly dissect exactly what is required in order to broadcast a camera feed online.

Ultimately, the camera at your event needs to communicate with your streaming platform of choice in real time. Below, we will look at various setups as determined by your initial equipment.

First: cameras! We’ve included a few important reminders for each type of camera.

Choosing the right camera for your live event

It’s not always the case that you need a full HD broadcast camera to cover your live event. Sometimes, even a simple web camera will do. Or perhaps you’re limited to the technology your media services department has on-hand. Whatever the case may be, fear not! We’ll go over setups for webcams, DSLRs, smartphones, and broadcast cameras.

Option 1: A USB Webcam

If you’re using a USB webcam, you are probably planning on broadcasting webcasts or webinars that offer training or online learning courses. Chances are, you’re expecting a concurrent audience – that is, viewers simultaneously watching your live stream – of fewer than 100 people.

In order to ensure proper connectivity with your USB webcam, make sure that you have downloaded the most recent drivers for your device. If you plan on capturing audio through your webcam, confirm that the microphone works, too!

Option 2: a DSLR (such as the Panasonic GH2/GH3/GH4, Canon 5D, Sony A7s, or others)

Using a DSLR? By our estimation, that means you’re likely covering an event such as a wedding, a local music show, a live event, or an internal corporate broadcast. You may also be exploring long-form live streamed content, streaming a particular space for hours, days, or even weeks on end.

First of all, it is important to make sure that your DSLR has clean HDMI output. Many DSLRs now include this, but some- notably, Canon DSLRs – require third-party firmware such as Magic Lantern. Install at your own risk and make sure you’re comfortable with the new setup before your event begins!

Next, you’ll need to determine what type of output your camera has. There are three options: micro-HDMI, mini-HDMI, and standard HDMI.

Option 3: Smartphone

Perhaps you’re offering floor coverage a cool event, exploring a new art gallery opening, streaming your favorite band (with their permission of course!), or just connecting with your digital fan base. Whatever the reason, smart phones now have a plethora of live streaming tools at their disposal!

Prior to broadcast, make sure you are on WiFi with great upload speeds (for an HD broadcast, you should have greater than 5Mbps). While you can broadcast from a 4G/LTE connection, streaming consumes your data very quickly.

Check your bandwidth by using SpeedTest, and run the test multiple times to get a better sense of your average upload speeds.

Also: consider investing in an external microphone and a stabilizer. Your audience will really appreciate the added production value!

Option 4: Broadcast Camera

It’s a high-profile event, and you’re bringing the best gear you have. Or maybe you’re stuck at the back of a room and you’re relying on your broadcast camera’s low-light ability and its big zoom. Either way, you’re broadcasting in full HD and you’re not going to miss a single second!

Because you are likely far away from the presenter, plan on bringing some additional audio elements to handle capturing sound. Often, the venue will be able to run you an XLR from their house mixing booth; if you run this into your camera, you’ll be able to capture all speakers exactly as they’re being output in the venue. Just in case, make sure you bring your audio adapters, an extra XLR run, and (if possible) a wireless lavaliere transmitter and receiver set.

Next: let’s select your platform!

Selecting the Right Platform for your Event

In order to determine the correct live streaming platform for your event, ask yourself these questions:

Is your event private or public?
Will you require user registration, password-protection, or paywalls?
Does your IT department already have a platform in place?

If your company does not already have a platform in place, then follow the guide below for selecting the one that suits your event best.

Live Event Streamed to the Public

With a public event, you are hoping for as many viewers as possible. The last thing you want is for your viewers to crash the stream because you’ve run out of bandwidth, so let’s look at platforms that support unlimited viewers. In our view, here are the three best options:

YouTube is the top choice so long as you do not have copyrighted content and you’re ad-free. It’s free to use, you can embed your stream on your website as easily as you would any other YouTube video, and their servers will never crash.

If you have concerns with copyrighted content or that your content might conflict with YouTube’s Terms of Service, you can consider Livestream. The basic plan is free, though your users will be required to sign up for a Livestream account. Premium accounts, which allow you to embed the stream on your website, cost $199/month billed annually or $399/month monthly.

If your content is related to either music or gaming, then Twitch is a great option. Twitch has a highly active community of stream-watchers, is free to use, and is very straightforward to set up.

Of course, there are many other live streaming platforms available. When deciding which one to use, you should choose based on your audience: where will they be most comfortable? What platforms are they already using? Make it as simple for them as possible!

Live Streaming a Private Event

Depending on how private your event is, you have a few different options. For example, you can still use YouTube if your event is private: simply change the access from “public” to “unlisted”, and turn off “promote when this event is live”. Then embed it on a page on your website, and direct all traffic there.

If you need further protection – such as a paywall, or password-protection – we recommend DaCast. Their plans start as low as $25/month, though you’ll likely need to purchase additional bandwidth if you’re expecting a large audience.

For an event that is exclusively internal to your corporation, such as a CEO town hall, consider an enterprise webcasting solution such as MediaPlatform. Their Webcaster platform, for example, allows you to collect registrations, deploy Powerpoint slides and live chats, and many more features that would be of value for an internal corporate broadcast. However, these platforms are comparatively expensive, often costing in the thousands of dollars for single events.

Direct Connection to Fans

If you want your fans to look behind the scenes with you, then your best bet is a phone-based app like Periscope or Meerkat. These apps, which caught on in a big way in 2015, tie directly into your social feeds (in particular Twitter) and encourage you to interact with your audience while you’re broadcasting.

For a more intimate connection with your fans – maybe you’re sitting at your computer, rather than attending a major awards ceremony – you can set up a simple Google Hangout and invite them to attend. By the way, you can run Google Hangouts through YouTube – so you can talk with some of your audience directly while others simply spectate. And it’s archived on your YouTube channel automatically, as well!

Okay, you have your camera and you’ve chosen your platform. But in between lies a challenge – how do you connect the two? For that, we’ll need to select a capture device.

Selecting the Proper Capture Device for your Camera

Roving Cameras

If you need to stay mobile – for example, side-line coverage of a sports event, field reporting or electronic news gathering – then you can use an on-camera encoder to send your signal where it needs to go. For this, there’s really only one clear choice: the Teradek VidiU Pro. Technically, it’s not a capture device – it handles the capture, encoding, and streaming of your feed all-in-one. While it is costly ($999), it offers the ability to stream your camera feed via WiFi, ethernet, or 4G/LTE (via a USB modem, not included) directly to any platform of your choice. This includes uStream, Livestream, YouTube, and any platform that accepts an RTMP stream.

If you’re using an SDI camera, you might need to go with the more costly Teradek Cube, unless you feel comfortable converting your SDI feed to HDMI.

Stationary

You’re settling in for a long day of conference live streaming. You have your camera set up at the back of the room, and you’re on the edge of your seat awaiting the first keynote speaker. If you won’t be moving around, then you can feed your camera into a capture device such as the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle or Blackmagic Mini Monitor.

For PCs, we recommend using the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle or Blackmagic Ultrastudio SDI, depending on your camera. These offer USB3 connections from your camera to your computer.

For Macs, use the Blackmagic Mini Recorder, which have Thunderbolt connections.

Note: there are many types of capture devices available. Avoid the temptation of purchasing low-cost or generic devices: these regularly have issues with latency, or cause the audio and video to drift slowly apart. We recommend Blackmagic devices because we have never experienced these issues using them.

Encoding your Signal

Whether you’re using a Mac or a PC, capturing the camera feed is only half the battle. the other half is encoding that feed for your platform of choice. (If you’re using a webcam, you’ll also need to use one of these encoders.)

With only one camera and no switching needed, you can feel safe using Adobe’s Flash Media Live Encoder. Select the appropriate input, type in your platform information, and then enjoy the fruits of your labor.

If, however, you need to do some occasional switching – maybe throwing in a “thanks for watching” graphic, or an occasional video, then you should plan on using WireCast. While costly ($500 for the basic version), WireCast is the de facto industry standard. It’s a great piece of software, and fairly intuitive to figure out. WireCast also offers other bonuses, such as being able to pull in smart phone feeds, a robust screen capture system called Desktop Presenter, and even social media integration with a live Twitter plugin.

As with all other categories, there are other encoding options available – notably, XSplit and Open Broadcaster System, which are both open-source encoders – but we believe WireCast and Adobe FMLE are straightforward enough that anyone can produce a simple broadcast with only a few hours’ training.

That’s it for this blog post! Thanks for sticking with us. As always, you can e-mail us at info@mainstreamchicago.com if you have any questions, concerns, or comments.

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Lessons Learned from Streaming a Summer’s Worth of Live Events

Nick Bacon — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 17:27:27 +0000

Top 5 Lessons we Learned from Streaming this Summer’s Live Events

The past few months have seen us busier than we have ever been before. Producing live streams on a nearly continuous basis has not left us much time to update our blog – sorry about that!

Having live-streamed weddings, brand relaunches, political events & town halls, live music, and graduation ceremonies (all in the last 6 weeks), we have learned some brand new lessons and reinforced older ones. We have also had the opportunity to work with amazingly talented people with decades of experience in event production, running the gamut from IT Directors to seasoned television engineers to marketing specialists. Over the next few months, we plan to have many of them sit down and chat with us so that we can impart their wisdom through our blog – you’ll see posts about Tricasters, intricate camera chain setups, the marketing side of running a service-based agency, and much much more. So stay tuned!

While those posts are coming, today we would like to focus on the valuable lessons about live-streaming and event production that we have learned over the last few months. And so, let us begin!

Lesson 1: Audio Adapters are your Best Friends.

Ah, Radio Shack. How we miss thee. Gone are the days where, while on production, you could casually stroll to your neighborhood electronics store to pick up spare connectors. In this post-Shack world, putting together a complete audio connector kit and carrying it with you to every event is of the utmost importance.

It’s been stressed many times by countless people, but getting good audio at an event is so, so important. An audience can tolerate lower-resolution video; they cannot abide inferior audio.

Unless your team is personally responsible for the entire audio run, you need to be prepared for any sort of connection the venue or audio vendor might send to you. While you can hope that it’s a balanced XLR feed, that might not be the case!

Here’s what’s included in our audio connector kit:

1/8″ to XLR
1/8″ f-f coupler
1/8″ m-f extension cable – 20′
1/8″ to 1/4″
1/8″ to RCA
1/4″ to 1/8″
1/4″ to XLR
XLR m-m coupler
XLR f-f coupler
XLR Y-cable
XLR cables – 15′ and 25′ (which you can daisy-chain if needed)
BONUS: Wireless transmitter/receiver (such as the Sennheiser G2 or G3
DOUBLE BONUS: shotgun mic
TRIPLE BONUS: field recorder such as the Tascam DR-40

With this setup, we have been able to save several productions by piece-mealing together a high-quality audio run. And here it is, all assembled, in one Amazon wishlist!

Lesson 2: Measure Twice, Cut Once

This old carpenter’s adage certainly applies to live event production, as well. When we live stream an event, we typically have two deliverables: (1) the live stream itself and (2) a line cut, or recording, of the broadcast. When you put in the work up front, it’s much more likely that your project is complete once you deliver the line cut. If you don’t, chances are you will have to make changes after the event is over – swapping in ISO recordings from the cameras, removing errant graphics, and so on.

If you are pulling in feeds from other vendors – say, an audio feed from the house A/V, or a Powerpoint presentation from a speaker’s computer – be perfectly clear about what you need for your broadcast. Rather than asking for “a feed from the computer”, ask for “a 16×9 feed via HDMI with embedded audio mirroring the exact display of the computer desktop.” And once you are on site, verify that you are getting exactly what you need.

As an example: this year, we produced the live pre-show to the Chicago legs of the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well Tour. Produced on behalf of Live Alliance and LiveList, it was imperative that our pre-show match the superb quality of the shows that both those organizations regularly produce. Our line producer Charlie Fritschner did an outstanding job leading a team of segment producers, camera operators, and on-air talent every day, giving us detailed breakdowns of every minute of each show. Because of his hard work (and YouTube Live’s instantaneous auto-archiving), our job was done as soon as the pre-show was over.

Two additional tips to ensure you won’t have to re-edit your line cut: (1) Always get graphics pre-approved by the client prior to air, and (2) have multiple people double-check for typos.

In sum: preparing your event in excruciating detail ahead of time drastically reduces the amount of work you will have to do on the backend.

Matt Koerner, our on-air talent, prepares for the live show.

Lesson 3: Record Everything, Everywhere

Murphy’s Law, as applied to live event production, is as follows: “that which is not backed up will fail.”

To that end, it’s important to record all media at multiple points so as to ensure you are fully prepared in case of emergency. More often than not, you won’t need to access your recordings – but they’re always good to have.

For us, we have learned to always record ISO shots on each camera and audio straight from the mixer (prior to it feeding into one of our cameras). We also always get backup copies of Powerpoint files and digital graphics. And if we’re on a multi-cam shoot, we capture source audio from our B- and C- cameras as well.

As a quick aside: if you’re working in a venue that cannot provide adequate bandwidth to stream a full HD broadcast, it’s great to offer HD remasters for archival. With proper backup recordings, this is fairly simple to execute!

Lesson 4: Embrace Technology

When people ask if we can do something we have never attempted before, we almost always respond with a qualified “yes.” We appreciate the challenge, and love adding new tools to our tool belt.

Given enough time before an event, it is certainly possible to learn enough about a given technology to implement it. Lead time is important: you need to make sure you have adequate time to fully research, develop, and test a new idea. Because people approach us weeks or even months before their event begins, we can be confident in our ability to fully execute a new idea.

That said, it’s important not to over-burden yourself with ideas or processes that you have not used before. To that end, we often institute the “one new thing” approach – for every event, we allow ourselves to explore one new process. With only one independent variable, we can rely on the strength of our workflow and quickly troubleshoot anything that surprises us.

One example: during a recent graduation ceremony live stream, we were asked to stream a clean feed to an overflow room. The room was several hundred yards away from our control room, which would make a traditional cable run very challenging. Because the client brought the idea to us well in advance, we were able to work through a solution with them ahead of time. All it took was adding one $100 piece of equipment to our signal flow, and voila! Everything worked just fine. We have since used that piece of equipment on multiple occasions since then.

Lesson 5: Learn All The Things

Video production often puts you in the unique position of interviewing subject matter experts, giving you unfettered access to highly specific knowledge. Similarly, producing live events gives you behind-the-scenes access to events and locations for which people travel all over the world. Maintaining a thirst for knowledge and genuinely appreciating the opportunity to learn from experts keeps us passionate about the work that we do. Never take that for granted!

Conclusion

While it has certainly been a busy summer for us, we continue to look forward to producing more live streams over the ensuing months. We have been extraordinarily lucky to work with very talented folks and we will continue to learn from them. And we will certainly share what we have learned with all of you!

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