live streaming Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

How to Improve Your Virtual Events: Tips To Drive Audience Engagement

Nick Bacon — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 13:02:32 +0000

This post was originally published on 8/6/19, and was updated on 11/10/22.

“DE-FENCE!” “DE-FENCE!” “Na na na na na na naaaahh!” “Encore!!!”

Whether you’re cheering on your favorite sports team, singing along at a concert or clapping at the end of a presentation, you don’t just experience the events you attend. You’re an active participant. In doing so, you elevate the experience not just for yourself, but for everyone around you. Participation can even alter the outcome of an event. So why is audience interaction such an afterthought when it comes to virtual events?

Making your webcasts interactive is one of our most important tips when it comes to improving your virtual events. Encouraging audience participation creates a more engaged community and a better viewing experience. So let’s take a look at some tips and tools that allow you to do that.

How to improve your virtual events

The basics: chat

One of the most basic ways to improve virtual events is a chat feature. Chat threads connect the audience to other viewers, creating community around your brand’s messages. Connecting viewers demonstrates that they are not in a vacuum: there are others, scattered around the world, who share common interests.

It also gives audience members a chance to engage with your brand directly, by giving them a chance to ask questions, click on any links you share, and more.

While a chat feature is one of the easiest ways to give your virtual events a boost, it does take some time investment on your part. An unmonitored chat feed can easily go awry, and too much chat clutter can overshadow the broadcast itself. Moderation is critical: it’s important to keep discussion healthy, but focused. Through thoughtful input, event producers can guide the conversation. Help steer conversation by establishing clear guidelines upfront about what types of communication will not be allowed.

Pinning a comment to your Facebook Live event keeps the audience focused.

If your webcast is running through social media, then chat is likely already endemic. But if you’re running an event through your website, you might need to leverage a third-party chat app. One embeddable solution we’ve used is Chatroll. Offering both free and paid models, it also includes branding and customization features that enable a live event producer (with some front-end web development chops) to create a chat application that matches brand style guidelines. Also important, audiences can log in with either social credentials, SSO, or a semi-anonymous “Guest” account.

More advanced: Q&A, polling, and real-time feedback

Audience feedback can influence an event’s outcome. Just like when the crowd’s chants drive a baseball player to hit a home run, a skillful event producer can take feedback from the audience and incorporate it into a webcast, making the event work better for everyone watching.

One easy way to gather that feedback? A Q&A feature. Giving attendees a chance to ask questions during your keynote or panel discussions means your event content will be even more tailored to their interests and needs. And it’s an easy add—most of the time, including a Q&A means simply adding 10-15 minutes at the end of your run of show.

If your live stream has natural breaks, like ad rolls or live video playback, then a Floor Director can relay one or two comments to your talent.

What is often overlooked is the best way to send the best questions to your presenters. If your webcast has an in-person component to it, then your digital audience’s questions can integrate seamlessly. Appoint a Q&A moderator who is physically at the event, and when the time comes, pass them the microphone to communicate any questions from your online community.

But if there’s no physical component to your event, it might feel stilted for presenters to scroll through a feed of questions or have an offscreen voice projecting questions. Mainstream normally solves this issue by monitoring questions that come in throughout the event and dropping them in a shared Google Doc. Then, we’ll display the Doc on a reference monitor just offset. An added benefit for this method is that Q&A moderators can be remote, allowing clients to participate from an offsite location.

Polls, another interactive webcast tool, serve a similar purpose to Q&A: they provide a limited set of data back to the presenters, who can analyze and interpret that information during the event. Like Q&A, polls have two components: the question, and the (collective) answer. When incorporating polls into a webcast, be sure to include plenty of time for your audience to respond to the initial survey. At minimum, you’ll want to give attendees 5 minutes to respond to each poll question.

You’ll want to avoid using polls if your poll data has a clear “correct” answer: due to heightened anonymity, polls tend to elicit more mischievous responses. Put simply: expect trolls.

As a webcast production company specializing in interactive content, we have leveraged (or built) many tools for polling, Q&A, and other real-time dynamic data displays. The best tool we’ve used is Sli.do. Importantly, it functions very well on mobile: real-time interactivity works best when it’s coming from a second screen. As with Chatroll, Slido easily embeds on your website. While pricier at $200 – $1,000 per event, Slido’s ease of use makes it worth the price.

The unexpected: unique ideas to improve virtual event engagement

While chat and Q&A are important for any virtual event, we’ve all attended enough events to expect these features at a bare minimum. So how else can we capture our audiences’ attention and get them to interact with us in new ways?

We recently collected unique virtual event ideas from event experts and Mainstream customers around the country, and they did not disappoint. From at-home dance parties to virtual competitions featuring audience voting, leading event planners are finding creative ways to drive audience participation and elevate what virtual events look like.

Check out the full list of ideas here >

Counterpoint: is simple better?

Interactivity creates engagement, but is it worth dividing your audience’s attention? Given too many distractions, your audience can lose focus. An even greater risk is asking your audience to participate by using a second device or looking at a different screen: when they look elsewhere, it can be a challenge to bring them back.

Amazon simplifies the interactive webcast into one screen, combining a live feed with a chat overlay.

Our recommendation is to leverage one activity at a time. Asking too much of your audience will drive them away. Also, focus their attention! For example: when you’re looking for messages in the chat, pin a moderated comment to the top of the chatroom. Afterward, remove the pinned comment. Last, stay away from duplicate tools. Q&A and Chat operate similarly, so only choose one.

Our recommendation is to leverage one activity at a time. Asking too much of your audience will drive them away. And focus their attention! For example: when you’re looking for messages in the chat, pin a moderated comment to the top of the chatroom. Afterward, remove the pinned comment. Last, stay away from duplicate tools. Q&A and chat platforms operate similarly, so only choose one.

What have we learned?

Adding interactivity to your webcasts can help bridge the gap between virtual and physical events. Tools like chat, Q&A, and polling create a more compelling live event experience for your global audience. When producing a webcast, try to leverage the built-in tools available on your platform: comments, live chat, and Reactions are all endemic to a live social experience. Drive optimal engagement through focused interactivity, and your audience will continue to grow.

Mainstream produces professional virtual events that engage, enrich and entertain.

Learn more >

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.

The Perfect Shot List for Corporate Webcasts

Nick Bacon — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 22:55:39 +0000

Every event presents unique challenges. Speakers pull out at the last minute, attendees don’t use your event app, a power outage pulls down the video feed of your special celebrity guest appearing via Skype. While Murphy wasn’t an event planner, Murphy’s Law seems to have been written specifically about live events.

When things start to go wrong, it’s important to have a plan in place that help you get back on track. Preparing a shot list for your webcast is one such strategy. In traditional filmmaking, shot lists articulate the cinematic strategy, so all crew can execute towards the same vision. In live streaming, a shot list distinguishes different shot types, ensuring that action is captured appropriately to convey the content.

When we produce a webcast, we utilize four main shot types: the Wide Shot, the Tight Shot, the Presentation Feed, and the Picture-in-Picture. Here’s an explanation of each of those shots!

The Wide Shot

A Wide Shot covers the entire area of action, establishing location and providing a safe shot that’s always available for a cutaway. Also called the Long Shot or Full Shot, a Wide Shot is a Director’s best friend. Since it often runs without an operator (making it “static”), the framing never changes. While less engaging than other shots, it is reliably available for coverage while other shots may be changing.

For a more engaging version of the wide shot, consider adding an operator who can perform slow zooms, pans, and tilts. But don’t overdo it: again, the most important feature of a wide shot is its availability, covering other shots if they are in transition.

The Tight Shot

Depending on framing, this shot might also be known as a Close (CU), Medium Close (MCU), or Hero Shot. Where the Wide Shot frames your action, the Tight Shot focuses on it. When fixed on a presenter, this shot often manifests with chest-up framing, a beat of headroom, and plenty of leading room if your presenter isn’t doing a direct address.

A Tight Shot requires a camera operator with a steady hand, and a camera on a fluid tripod head. This allows the cam op to follow the action. For best quality, there should be communication between the camera operator and Technical Director so they know when their shot is live.

The Presentation Feed

When presenting a PowerPoint or other computer presentation, a producer should always take a full-resolution feed directly from the presenter’s computer. This keeps the virtual presentation synchronized with the physical one. Additionally, quality tends to be much higher, allowing for full frame-rate playback of videos, and crisp text on-screen text.

Because this shot often does not show an actual person, audiences find them very disengaging. As such, they should be used sparingly. Even webinars would be better served by diminishing reliance on this shot.

Picture-in-Picture

When presentation feeds are combined with a camera feed into one shot, this is called Picture-in-Picture (or PiP). This shot is much more engaging than just showing a Presentation, for the simple reason that there is a person’s face on the screen. Humans learn better when they can see the presenter.

PiP shots normally include:

a big frame, which shows the presentation;
A little frame, which shows a camera feed;
A graphic overlay, which frames the two feeds and may provide additional information such as an event description, logo, or sponsor graphic.

Advanced Shots

Once your basics are covered with the 4 shots listed above, adding more dynamic shots can create a more exciting broadcast. Here are some other shots to try!

The Medium Shot

If you have a punchy panel on stage where you’re expecting a lot of back-and-forth debate, consider adding a third camera capturing a medium shot. Also called a “2-shot” or “3-shot” depending on the number of people in the frame, this shot creates a relationship between multiple subjects.

The Audience Reverse Shot

If you’re expecting the audience to participate, or if your presenter gets lots of laughs/questions then a reverse shot showing the audience response can add an interesting angle. This could be a behind-the-stage shot, showing a silhouetted speaker against a sea of people, or it could be a tight shot on specific audience members.

Canted Wide Shot

Often used as an intro, outro, or interstitial shot, the canted wide is an atmospheric shot that places a presentation in the context of its environment. It may even be blurred slightly, or part of the frame might be obscured by a large object in extreme close-up. This shot is often seen underneath graphic overlays such as titles, credits, or sponsor logos.

Conclusion

A shot list takes the guesswork out of live stream production and frees up a stream producer to focus on the important things: engagement, content development, and the myriad problems that inevitably arise at the last minute. We hope you find it helpful!

Using YouTube for Corporate Webcasting

Nick Bacon — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:37:38 +0000

When was the last time your best friend sent you a YouTube video? Did you watch it? (Maybe a better question: how many times did you watch it, and how often do you quote it to each other now?)

What about the last time your boss sent you a YouTube video? Did you watch it? (If you did, probably not for more than a few seconds, right?)

YouTube is still the number one tool for video of all types. Despite its positioning as a consumer-based tool, there are many situations where it works very well in a corporate environment. Specifically, its webcasting functionalities fit very nicely into a corporate digital ecosystem. As a free-to-use tool, considering YouTube as an option for your next corporate webcast may save your company hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Here are some reasons to think about using YouTube for corporate webcasting:

Security

Let’s address the elephant in the room: security. As a public platform, YouTube is not designed to be a completely secure system. If you need to truly limit access, or the material you are broadcasting is sensitive, then YouTube is not the right platform to use.

The threshold for “sensitive data” is unique to each company. Companies that are publicly traded are required to report quarterly financial data, while most private companies would not consider sharing financial metrics with anyone but the highest-level employees. Every company is different.

YouTube offers three different levels of privacy for all its videos and webcasts:

Public videos are searchable, appear in your channel feed, and can be shared with anyone.
Unlisted videos do not appear in search or your channel feed, though they can still be shared with anyone and added to public playlists.
Private videos are only accessible to approved Google accounts; an administrator needs to invite individual users to access the video.

Taken from the YouTube support forums. Thanks Google!

For many events, simply creating an Unlisted YouTube video is often secure enough. This introduces enough of a barrier to keep uninvited guests away: the only way to gain access is by the host or attendee sharing access information. In that regard, its security is essentially as rigorous as any password-protected content.

Bandwidth & Firewalls

If you are employed at an educational institution, a government office, or anywhere requiring a security clearance, then your company likely has a corporate firewall preventing access to YouTube. In this scenario, YouTube (or any public video platform) is unlikely to be a solution: you will need to use an internal webcasting platform, such as Adobe Connect, Blue Jeans, Zoom, Skype, or something built internally.

Corporate webcasts (gasp) can actually be fun events!

As a live stream production company, we often assess our clients firewall settings prior to an event to determine whether a public platform would work. In situations where infrastructure will not support utilization of a public webcasting tool, we have built our own internal webcasting platform. Contact us for a demo!

Another important consideration is the number of concurrent viewers onsite watching the webcast. For the purpose of this question, “concurrent viewer” is defined as a single device playing back the live stream during its scheduled broadcast time. “Device” as opposed to “human being” is an extremely important distinction, because it’s the device that consumes bandwidth. From a bandwidth-perspective, there’s no difference between 100 people watching on a projector versus one person watching on their laptop. But 100 people watching on their phone will consume 100x as much downstream bandwidth.

100 people watching the same live stream consumes as much bandwidth as one person!

To Chat or Not to Chat?

There is no denying that chat can be a double-edged sword. Left unchecked and in the face of surprising or divisive content, it can sow seeds of discord. But companies who trust their audience can engender goodwill by enabling collective conversation through the means of a moderated chat.

(If you do not trust your audience, then perhaps using chat is even more important for you: it can provide you with valuable insights on morale while encouraging you to understand and trust your employees more. Don’t fear the trolls!)

YouTube’s chat feature provides a basic level of interaction that encourages audience participation. Since it requires Google account access, the veil of anonymity is translucent at best: you more or less know who is saying what. Basic moderation tools allow you to control the conversation to an extent, though over-utilization can ultimately backfire.

Examples: when to use YouTube as a corporate webcast platform, and which level of privacy to use

Having produced thousands of corporate webcasts, Mainstream has a good sense of what will and will not work for the platform. Here are some of our suggestions:

Public Events

Product launches. Your team has worked hard to launch a new product. Share its launch publicly and let them show off their work!
Press conferences. Especially announcing new partnerships or spokespeople, as these create an opportunity to co-mingle your network with new blood.
Fireside chats/panel discussions. Public conversations with corporate executives that showcase the human side of an enterprise can engender goodwill both with your community and beyond your walls.
Award ceremonies. Publicly acknowledging your team, even for an internal award, creates goodwill within your team’s social network. And for prospective recruits, it’s a great way to showcase your healthy corporate culture!

Unlisted Events

Town Halls. An unlisted event on YouTube creates a laid-back atmosphere where employees can feel empowered to ask questions with leadership that they might normally not feel comfortable asking. Since it’s unlisted, it’s still a “safe space” to have a conversation.
Executive announcements. Not all executive announcements are fit for public consumption, nor do they fit within the public-facing feed of your YouTube channel. Still, leveraging an unlisted YouTube event as opposed to an event license on a private platform such as On24 or MediaPlatform could save your company thousands of dollars per broadcast.
Financial reporting (for public companies). Creating an unlisted event to report your company’s quarterly financials helps a corporation control its messaging and conversation. By inviting key media figures to participate in the unlisted YouTube live stream, you can potentially cut down on pirate content streams.
Training. Most people learn and build their skills by watching YouTube videos. Rather than writing endless product guides or manuals, encourage the educators in your company to create unlisted YouTube live streams to train others on new skills. You can also do this with customers, offering training sessions with product developers or support specialists.
Internal events. Streaming keynotes, internal conferences, conversations, or even team parties can foster community growth, especially if you have multiple offices scattered across the globe.
Employee Recognition. Build trust across your departments by having standout employees explain their work and why it’s important. Let the Sales team ask questions of your top Marketing Specialists, or your Customer Support team chat with Product Development. With a more holistic understanding of your company and its products, everyone wins.

Private Events

Personnel or Administrative Changes. Commenting is disabled for private events, so any event where the news could be controversial – such as mass layoffs, mergers/acquisitions, restructuring, or relocation – works better as a completely private event.

6 Best Practices for Running a Facebook Live Event

Nick Bacon — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 20:38:11 +0000

Streaming on Facebook Live

Live video streaming is a remarkably engaging tool that brands, content producers, and events can use to connect with followers and grown an audience. While a bit later to the game than other social media platforms, Facebook has made a significant push to incorporate live streaming into its platform. In 2016, 16% of marketers reported using Facebook Live – and with an engagement rate 3x that of traditional videos, it’s easy to understand why!

With a few dozen streams on Facebook Live now under our belts, we have identified a few best practices that can help increase your viewership and drive engagement with your audience. Whether you’re streaming a press conference, an annual meeting, an interview series, or a live music festival, these practices all apply.

(If you have any specific questions, give us a call or shoot us an email – we are always happy to walk people through their first Facebook live setup!)

Promote Your Event Beforehand

If you were having a party and didn’t tell anyone about it, you wouldn’t expect anyone to show up, right?

The same is true for a Facebook live event. In order to reach a high-quality audience, you need to promote it beforehand. This is especially important if paid promotion is a part of your marketing strategy, as you are currently unable to boost a Facebook Live event. Make sure you include event specifics in your promotion posts, such as when the event will occur, who will be involved, and how you want your audience to engage (like, share, leave questions for your presenter, sign up or register, and so on).

Run the Event Through Your Brand’s Facebook Page

If you have already built up your brand’s presence on Facebook, then you should absolutely run your event through your brand’s page. There is no need to create an event for your broadcast or run it through your personal page. Depending on time and duration of your broadcast, you can normally expect 10-25% of your total followers to engage with your content.

If you have only just begun growing your audience on Facebook, you may want to consider partnering up with a more established page in order to drive more viewership. For example: if you work at a university and want to stream an event for your department, work with your school’s social media team to stream the event through its main Facebook page.

Schedule Your Post

Facebook Live allows you to schedule a stream up to 7 days in advance. We recommend creating your live post 24 hours before you plan on going live. Viewers will be able to like and share your post prior to the event, as well as set a reminder so that Facebook alerts them once you go live. That way, your audience is already in place when you start your show!

When you schedule a Facebook Live post, it will automatically go live at its scheduled start time. You must begin your broadcast within 10 minutes of your scheduled start time, or your event will be cancelled – so make sure you are prompt!

Pin your event to the top of your Facebook page so any new visitors are alerted to your broadcast. That way, you can continue to post content prior to your event as you normally would without your stream being lost in the feed.

Keep Your Intro Brief

Unlike on other platforms, you do not want a long hold screen while your audience is settling in. Keep your hold screen up for under one minute, or your audience will begin to tune out.

If you need a bit more lead time, consider shooting pre-recorded content you can show prior to your stream starting. You could also set up a behind-the-scenes camera shot that the audience can watch while you are getting ready.

Engage Your Audience

Once you have begun your broadcast on Facebook Live, keep your audience engaged! Pin a message to the top of your comments so newcomers know what they are watching.

Your audience wants to feel like they are a part of the event. Encourage your on-screen talent to address the Facebook audience directly. It’s also very helpful to have a representative engaging in the chat, liking and replaying to your audience’s posts in real-time.

Encourage your Facebook audience to interact with your stream. Strategies may include asking questions to your presenters, participating in a raffle or give-away, voting on the content using Facebook emojis, or all of the above!

After the Event: Keep Engagement Going!

Once your event has concluded, Facebook will archive it in your video library. Your archived recording can be a powerful post-engagement tool (which, unlike your live stream, can be promoted through a paid ad campaign).

One trick that often gets overlooked: always, always, always add captions to your Facebook videos. There are highly accurate captioning companies such as Home Team Captions or 3Play Media which can help you with this. 85% of Facebook videos are viewed without sound, so captions are essential. Studies have shown that adding captions increases a video’s average watch time by 12%.

If there were some moments during your Facebook live broadcast that your audience found particularly engaging, cut those segments out and re-upload them as short clips. You can repurpose these shortened videos on YouTube, Instagram, or other social media channels.

Conclusion

A properly optimized Facebook Live event is one of the best engagement tools in the digital marketing tool belt today. If you are considering producing your Facebook Live event, contact us today and let us know – we are here to help!

The 2017 Guide to Streaming on YouTube

Nick Bacon — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 20:24:02 +0000

Welcome to 2017, everyone! We thought we would kick off the New Year by brain-dumping everything we know about setting up an event on YouTube Live. It’s a great platform that, in our estimation, covers at least half of all use-cases with a live stream. As mentioned in past articles, it is not without its shortcomings. But at the end of the day, YouTube Live is a powerful platform for streaming just about any live event.With that said, let’s dive right in!

Getting Started

First things first: you will need to enable your account for live streaming. You can do this by going to your Live Events Panel and clicking on “Enable Live Streaming.” You’ll need to verify your account, so have your cell phone handy.

If you wish to embed your stream somewhere other than YouTube, you’ll need to link your YouTube account to Adwords. The approval process can take up to 48 hours, so make sure you get this done well before you intend to stream!

Once approved, you’ll simply go into Creator Studio > Channel > Status and Features, and turn on embedding.

Next: selecting your streaming software!

Choosing the Right Streaming Software

There are more and more software packages available that offer streaming to YouTube every day. Luckily, YouTube keeps a list of recommended software. All recommended software integrates natively, meaning that by inputting your YouTube login credentials, you will be able to stream to YouTube Live directly. This is actually A Big Deal: it takes out the complex (and error-prone) process of entering your RTMP address and unique stream key.

Want our recommendations on which software to use? Well, sure! Here you are:

Streaming from your iPhone? Use WireCast Go. Very robust for a free app and for $6 you can turn it into a mini live switcher.
Prefer open-source software? Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is for you. It’s well-documented and the gaming community loves it.
Want to use the industry standard? Stick with WireCast Pro. Version 7, their latest release, has some remarkable features. . You can get an overview from our friends over at the Tech Buzz here.

Let’s Go Live!

So we have enabled our account, and we’ve selected our software. We’re now ready and able to start streaming! If you look in your Creator Studio > Live Streaming sub-menu, you have two options: “Stream Now” and “Events”.

Using the “Stream Now” Option

Selecting the “Stream Now” Option pushes you directly to your public live stream control room. Here, you control your entire public broadcast. (If you want to create a broadcast that isn’t publicly available, you’ll want to read about the “Events” Option.)

Your stream will show as Offline until you start pushing content from your encoder. Prior to streaming your show, it’s helpful to change your video title and description. This will display on your stream’s watch page as well as the archived recording of your event.

When you begin pushing content, you will see a light turn green. At this point, in the parlance of Google, “people can totally see you now.”

Links to share your stream are located at the bottom right of the page. You can use that link to go directly to your stream’s watch page, where you can also get its embed information. IMPORTANT NOTE: this code will change every time you go live, so you can’t just continuously embed your public live stream. If you are embedding regular streams, remember to swap in your new embed code!

During the stream, you can also manage your chat from the same Control Room.

BONUS TIP: If your YouTube Live event becomes popular, you will see it pop up on YouTube’s Live Stream front page This can introduce your event to a whole new audience!

So, “Stream Now” is great if you want an impromptu, public event. However, if you need control over who sees your stream or when it begins, you’ll need to manually create an event.

Using the “Create Event” Option

First: schedule an event. When creating your event, you’ll enter the same info as you would any YouTube video: title, description, keywords, and so forth.

Next: choose your sharing options. If your event is meant for a closed audience, then select “unlisted”. That keeps your event from being indexed for search, though it does not prevent people from publicly sharing your link.

You will then want to check out your Advanced Settings. Here you can enable or disable chat, prevent the stream from being promoted on your page, and so on. For an unlisted stream with no chat, here is how we commonly set our advanced settings:

Once that’s done, choose your encoding options: Google Hangouts or custom. Google Hangouts recently folded some of its technology into YouTube Live, so if you are planning on broadcasting a conversation between you and up to 10 Google Hangouts participants, you will actually create that event through YouTube Live. We have used it to host some great Q&As. Here’s an example of it in action. For most broadcasts, however, you’ll use the “custom” setting.

On the next page, we’ll set our ingestion settings. Choose a thumbnail if you have a special one for your event; if you do not, YouTube uses your profile image as a place holder. Next, set the maximum sustained bitrate for your encoder. Very recently, YouTube Live has enabled 4K Live Streaming – which is very exciting! There are very few places that can support a 30Mbps upload speed, but we hope to see it more widely adopted in the future.

YouTube provides its own guidance on the relationship between bitrate and resolution, but our experience has led us to different conclusions. Here is our loose guide for choosing the correct resolution and bandwidth. If your venue has:

15Mbps upload speed or better: use 1080p
10-15Mbps upload speed: 720p
6-10Mbps: 480p, though there are some cases where 720p is okay (i.e. not a lot of animation or dramatic scene changes)
3-5Mbps: 360p-480p
Under 3Mbps: 240p

In most cases, you should not have to use custom ingestion settings: just select one of YouTube’s presets. In fact, many encoders will not like custom ingestion settings and may throw an error at you when you attempt to broadcast.

When you have selected your bitrate, then you will be prompted to select your encoder. If you are using one of YouTube’s (or our) recommended encoding platforms, you should just leave this set to “other encoder”. IF YOU ARE USING WIRECAST PRO, DO NOT SELECT THE “WIRECAST FOR YOUTUBE” OPTION. I know that’s confusing, but “WireCast for YouTube” is a different piece of software entirely, so just leave the settings as is.

Once you have authenticated YouTube in your encoder, you should be able to see your event as a stream location. Simply select it, press stream, and you’re good to go! To confirm your stream is working, go to your event’s Live Control Room. It might take a couple of minutes for your stream to come through once you have begun streaming from your encoder, and you may have to refresh the page a few times. (Don’t worry! Refreshing the page won’t break anything!) When the signal comes through, you will see the green light.

Click on “Preview to send your stream to the Preview window. Again, you might have to refresh a couple times before it actually plays, and that’s perfectly fine. Once it’s there, you’re good to go: hit start streaming, and you’re live!

BONUS TIP: Use YouTube’s Live Editing Feature! It’s especially useful if you’re producing a long day full of numerous sessions (a conference with many panels, a tournament with many games, an awards ceremony with tons of speeches) – you can upload those individual clips in real-time to your channel. Very handy!

Engaging the Audience

There’s nothing like connecting to an audience in real-time and interacting with them directly. What a powerful tool that we use, where we can connect to thousands of people instantaneously!

The standard tool for engagement is the Chat window. Chat is a fantastic tool to engage your audience or to let your audience engage itself. Unfortunately, you cannot save the chat logs after an event: however, you can add moderators, who can highlight questions, ban bad actors, and so on. This is especially important if your event has a Q&A aspect to it.

Another engaging tool that is unique to YouTube Live is Interactive Cards. This will throw an overlay atop your live stream that directs your audience into action. Features include:

Video or Playlist: link your audience to another video
Channel: Promote another channel
Donation: Raise funds for a verified non-profit (more info here)
Poll: Get your audience’s opinion in real-time
Website: link to an approved website

Summing Up

YouTube Live has made some great updates this past year, and still largely remains unchanged from a functional perspective. With plenty of other players entering the market, it will be interesting to see how Google responds. One weapon they have added to their arsenal: VR live streaming. We are very interested in seeing that space develop!

Questions? Comments? Hate mail? Feel free to send it to nick@mainstreamchicago.com. Happy New Year, everyone!

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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Did Telestream Accidentally Create the Industry’s Best Webinar Production Tool?

Nick Bacon — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 15:10:07 +0000

Twitch Con, a conference celebrating the world’s most popular eSports streaming platform, is not the place where you would expect to see the launch of an incredible new webinar production tool. But this past week, that is exactly what happened.

At the event, Telestream launched its new stream production tool. Known as Gameshow, the low-cost tool – a stripped-down, sleeked version of its popular webcasting program, Wirecast – offers the gaming community the ability to create dynamic, interactive, high-quality streams at the bargain-basement price of only $9/month. It’s available for Mac & PC and streams directly to YouTube or Twitch.

Though unintended by Telestream, this tool can be a powerful asset for those who regularly produce webinars.

Webinar producers can learn a lot from the eSports & streaming communities. The two products – webinars and game streams – are structurally very similar.

Both webinars and game streams feature the following:

A screen capture – either a game being played, or a presentation being given
Live view of the presenters (via a USB webcam or full HD camera)
Interactive elements to drive engagement – Q&As, chats, and direct communication between presenter and audience

Besides the compositional similarities, there are similar goals in the positioning of the audience and the presenters. In both cases, presenters seek to be seen as thought leaders in a particular area. The audience sticks the presenter for an extraordinarily long time – Twitch users watch their favorite streams for an average of 109 minutes a day, while a typical webinar will keep a viewer engaged for over 30 minutes. Whether your goal is to distinguish yourself as an expert in generating PR for technology startups or in withstanding a 6-pool zergling rush in Starcraft, your method of attracting and engaging an audience is the same.

Even though Telestream’s “Gameshow” is geared towards streamers, it can also be a vitally useful tool for webinar producers as well. It’s designed from the ground-up to be streamlined into complex workflows: the last thing a gamer wants is to lose valuable clicks-per-minute on a clunky production tool. So production is as simple as possible. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Select Your Template

With one click, select a pre-designed template. You can also build your own.

Step 2: Setup your platform

While Twitch is a great platform for streamers, most webinar producers will find YouTube’s interface much more suited to their goals. Input your username and give your camera and mic access, and Gameshow will prompt you to login to your YouTube account.

Step 3: Customize your broadcast

Gameshow’s user interface is incredibly intuitive – especially if you’ve used Wirecast. Customize each shot with screen /window captures, webcam shots, and a suite of dynamic interactive elements such as image carousels, web displays, social media icons, and more.

Step 4: Go Live

Once you’re all set, click the “Stream” button in the top-left corner. You’ll see a count-up timer start. If you go to your YouTube Live Dashboard it will look like this:

If the light is green, you’re good to go! Scroll down to the bottom of the page and go to the URL to your broadcast. You can then embed in your website as you normally would any YouTube video.

Using these tools to their fullest effect can have an immediate impact on your audience engagement, But there are key differences between the two industries to consider. While Twitch and YouTube are the platforms of choice for streamers, webinar producers have many more options. WebEx, GoToMeeting, WebinarPlatform, and more all exist and share a userbase. Currently, Gameshow only supports YouTube and Twitch, but with a “virtual camera” option, as we see in WireCast, webinar producers would gain access to the platform of their choice.

The other key difference is the “formal”-ness of the presentation: whereas streamers tend to show content off the cuff and in a less structured schedule, webinars tend to feature rehearsed presentations at a very specific pre-appointed time. You have to tune in at the right time and watch an entire webinar in order to get the most out of it; streamers encourage folks to tune in and out as they please, catching a few minutes here and there. You don’t have to watch Naniwa’s entire 8-hour stream to enjoy it; you can watch him rip apart an enemy for one match, crack a couple jokes in the chat, then go on to the next channel.

Webinar producers can learn much from the streaming community. Creating accessible, irreverent, yet high-quality broadcasts would cast a wider net and help create a more focused, engaged audience. Producers should also adopt the filmmaking mantra “show, don’t tell” – rather than deliver a rehearsed pitch, put your presentation into practice and let your audience come along for the ride. If your webinar discusses how to increase sales effectiveness, stream yourself as you call, qualify, and sell your product. If you’re leading an e-class on how to develop an electronic press kit, let them watch as you develop the actual materials in yours.

By adopting some of the tools and ideas from the streaming community, webinar producers can drastically increase their impact and effectiveness. See you at Twitch Con 2016, and if you need help producing your webinar, reach out to us!

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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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Field of Streams: Comparing 4 Remote Live Streaming Methods for 2015

Nick Bacon — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 22:08:06 +0000

In a perfect world, all live stream productions occur in a controlled environment, away from the elements, with access to an ultra-fast and ultra-reliable Internet connection. The world we live in, however, is not perfect. Broadcasters are regularly asked to stream HD content from remote locations and in less-than-ideal conditions. Last year, we received such a request: to stream a massive parade on the Southside of Chicago. While that particular project didn’t pan out, we spent many hours researching remote broadcasting. And we would love to share that research with you!

Besides parades, there are numerous outdoor events that might call for special broadcasting tactics. These include:

Music festivals, such as Lollapalooza;
Political rallies or field reporting from national events, such as the Ferguson protests;
Sports, including mainstream, alternative, and e-sports;
And many, many more!

There are many methods to send a broadcast signal, and we’ve chosen to go over a few broad categories. Special thanks to Reddit’s /r/videoengineering community and the broadcast experts mentioned below for their input!

Remote Broadcasting Options

Option 1: Run a dedicated line from a local business or building

If your event is near a friendly building, you can run an Ethernet line from their hub. The maximum distance for an Ethernet cable run is 90 meters, or roughly 295 feet.

This is the least expensive solution for a remote broadcast. If you’re familiar with setting up live streams inside a building, then the process is essentially the same. However, there are several issues to be aware of:

Internet speeds can fluctuate depending on the network pull. If you’re coming from an office with many employees, you might see your bandwidth reduce dramatically over the course of your event.
You will need to run a full test before the event: make sure there are no corporate Firewalls blocking your streaming platform or limiting your upstream bandwidth!
You will need access to the building, which might be difficult to coordinate during your event. Make sure to discuss this very clearly!
You will also need to secure your cable run – make sure your Ethernet cable is protected from the elements!

Option 2: Use a 3G/4G/LTE mobile hot-spot

If there are no businesses nearby, you could simply turn your phone into a mobile hotspot. (Here is a great explanation on how to do that). This is by far the easiest solution, but also the least reliable.
Here’s the thing about public events: a lot of people show up. With so many folks pulling signal from the same cell phone antenna, you will find it difficult to produce a steady, reliable stream. There just isn’t enough bandwidth.

Additionally, broadcasting uses lots of data. This can result in expensive overcharges on your cell phone bill.

(Check out our calculator to find out how much bandwidth your event will use!)

Best advice: use with caution, only if there are no other options, and not at a well-attended event.

Option 3: Cellular Bonding

Put simply: cellular bonding is when you split your broadcast signal over several cellular networks. (For a more technical explanation, check out this article over at TVTechnology.

While technically more complicated and expensive than the previous options, cellular bonding is much more reliable. If you have mission-critical broadcasts that are going straight to the web, cellular bonding is the best solution.

One thing to keep in mind: you will need to get data plans with multiple cellular networks. According to Mushroom Networks’ CEO Cahit Jay Akin, “clients can use anywhere from 2 to 8 3G/4G cell cards, depending on their project requirements, but [we] recommend no fewer than 4 cell cards.”

Mushroom Networks, Teradek, and others produce cellular bonding hardware. Again, according to Akin:

The Streamer by Mushroom Networks provides a transparent bonded tunnel that works seamlessly with your existing streaming setup. The solution comes pre-configured, so all you need to do is to unplug that imaginary wired Internet cable and plug the Ethernet cable from the Streamer.

Mushroom also has the Streamer PRO version that comes with a built-in adaptive state of the art encoder, so that you can plug a video connector directly and webcast to the CDN of your choice.

Option 4: Rent a Satellite Truck

If you are delivering your live feed to broadcast networks as well as the web, you might consider going the traditional broadcast route: renting a production truck and broadcasting via satellite.
To touch simply on a very complicated subject, satellite works by beaming your signal to a satellite (your “uplink”) and then back down to an ingest location (the “downlink”). Each link requires specialized equipment, which can be very expensive: a day’s truck rental in Chicago can cost anywhere from $2,500 to well over $10,000 (depending on volume, availability, and complexity of broadcast).

There are multiple bands from which you can broadcast, with the most common being Ku-band, C-band, and Ka-band. Here is a white paper that offers a full comparison of the various satellite bands.

Dan Biggar, Executive Vice President at Satellite Technology Systems, has this to say:

Ku-band is 99% reliable. Once in a great while if you have a strong storm cell with heavy rain it could wipe out your signal either at the uplink or downlink location. Rain fade usually clears within 10 minutes… Also for a few days in the Spring and Fall you can get a solar outage when the rays of the sun line up directly with the receiver dish.

C Band is 99.9% reliable. There is no rain fade with C Band. If there was a catastrophic failure with the truck you could lose the feed but that is rare. On some big money major sporting events aired on Broadcast TV the network will book a second satellite truck as backup.”

It’s also important to book your satellite time well in advance. Biggar notes, “on a major news day like the US Presidential election, all the KU satellite space gets booked up a month in advance.”

Satellite rental is recommended for mission-critical events.

Ranking your Remote Broadcasting Options

Every crew and every production is different. As such, the method you choose for your remote broadcast will depend on a variety of factors. In an effort to help you streamline your decision-making process, here are our rankings for each method, according to cost, complexity, and reliability.

Cost

Your options can range from under $100 to into the tens of thousands. Choose the option right for your budget!

Dedicated line from local building – under $100. Just convince someone nearby to let you top into their high-speed Internet, grab for your 90m Ethernet cable, and you’re all set!
4G modem – under $100 depending on total data broadcast. (Verizon charges $15/GB – be careful!)
Cellular bonding – around $3,000 for the hardware, plus data plans with 2-8 mobile networks. The hardware is a one-time cost.
Satellite truck – starts around $2,500 per link (and you’ll likely need an uplink and downlink), plus satellite rental time (upwards of $450/hour).

Complexity

To understand the complexity of a given solution, you must have knowledge of that solution’s failure points. While initial set up for each solution is straightforward, being able to troubleshoot on the fly can be difficult. Keep that in mind when using new technology!

4G modem – Simply turn your smartphone into a wi-fi hotspot and you’re all set! (Just don’t expect to have reliable, consistent bandwidth.)
Dedicated line – You’ll need to coordinate with the building’s IT department, but this is quotidian for live stream producers.
Satellite truck – Sat trucks can become complicated, but the engineering side is pretty straightforward – and some include an engineer/operator for the day!
Cellular bonding – Pre-configured out of the box, cellular bonding hardware is simple to navigate. What’s difficult and annoying is setting up data plans with multiple networks. Furthermore, some cellular bonding solutions require setting up server software, such as Teradek’s Sputnik Server.

Reliability

It does not matter how cost-friendly or easy-to-setup your solution is if it doesn’t produce good results. For mission-critical events with hundreds or thousands of anticipated viewers, reliability is the most important factor!

Satellite truck – If your pockets are deep, then satellite trucks are the way to go. Trust the solution that’s been trusted by giants of industry for decades.
Cellular bonding – While 4G/LTE bonding is comparatively new, the technology is mature and reliable.
Dedicated line – It works great if you have unfettered access to the host, but there are many failure points – long cable runs, potential inaccessibility, and network fluctuations, to name a few.
4G modem – It’s almost guaranteed that your signal will drop out at some point – and broadcasting in full HD is completely out of the question.

Conclusion – and a bonus gift!

Hopefully, we have been able to take some of the mystery out of remote broadcasting for you. Have more questions? Feel free to e-mail us (info@mainstreamchicago.com) and we will do our best to respond right away!

As a bonus, we’ve created this bandwidth cost calculator to help you determine your budget. This is meant more as an estimate that an exact amount, but hopefully it helps!

[CP_CALCULATED_FIELDS id=”6″]

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live streaming Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

How to Improve Your Virtual Events: Tips To Drive Audience Engagement

How to improve your virtual events

The basics: chat

More advanced: Q&A, polling, and real-time feedback

The unexpected: unique ideas to improve virtual event engagement

Counterpoint: is simple better?

What have we learned?

Mainstream produces professional virtual events that engage, enrich and entertain.

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

How to Host a Virtual Event in 7 Easy Steps

1. Getting started

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

“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

3. Choose your format

4. Secure (and prep) your speakers

“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.”

5. Promote your event

6. Run your show

7. Analyze, analyze, analyze!

Final Thoughts

The Perfect Shot List for Corporate Webcasts

Using YouTube for Corporate Webcasting

Security

Bandwidth & Firewalls

To Chat or Not to Chat?

Examples: when to use YouTube as a corporate webcast platform, and which level of privacy to use

Public Events

Unlisted Events

Private Events

6 Best Practices for Running a Facebook Live Event

Streaming on Facebook Live

Promote Your Event Beforehand

Run the Event Through Your Brand’s Facebook Page

Schedule Your Post

Keep Your Intro Brief

Engage Your Audience

After the Event: Keep Engagement Going!

Conclusion

The 2017 Guide to Streaming on YouTube

Getting Started

Choosing the Right Streaming Software

Let’s Go Live!

Using the “Stream Now” Option

Using the “Create Event” Option

Engaging the Audience

Summing Up

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

Determining Your Optimal Setup for a 1-Camera Live Stream

The Fundamental Setup

Choosing the right camera for your live event

Selecting the Right Platform for your Event

Selecting the Proper Capture Device for your Camera

Did Telestream Accidentally Create the Industry’s Best Webinar Production Tool?

Step 1: Select Your Template

Step 2: Setup your platform

Step 3: Customize your broadcast

Step 4: Go Live

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Recent Posts / View All Posts

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

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

Lesson 1: Audio Adapters are your Best Friends.

Lesson 2: Measure Twice, Cut Once

Lesson 3: Record Everything, Everywhere

Lesson 4: Embrace Technology

Lesson 5: Learn All The Things

Conclusion

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Recent Posts / View All Posts

Field of Streams: Comparing 4 Remote Live Streaming Methods for 2015

Remote Broadcasting Options

Option 1: Run a dedicated line from a local business or building

Option 2: Use a 3G/4G/LTE mobile hot-spot

Option 3: Cellular Bonding

Option 4: Rent a Satellite Truck

Ranking your Remote Broadcasting Options