Six Tips for Planning a Professional-Looking Live-Streamed Event

Streaming Media by Eric Norell

With a little planning and foresight, you can avoid some of the mistakes many inexperienced live event producers encounter, ensuring your live-streamed event is professionally produced with maximum reliability.

With today’s video streaming technology, virtually anyone can become a broadcaster via the Internet. However, even as streaming technology becomes more affordable and accessible, viewing audiences remain accustomed to a certain level of professionalism and quality, based on years of watching broadcast TV. With a little planning and foresight, you can avoid some of the mistakes many inexperienced live event producers encounter, ensuring your live-streamed event is professionally produced with maximum reliability.

1. Take Time to Evaluate Your Production Environment

Whether you’re streaming a small production from the local school’s baseball field, or a multifaceted live event from a venue with multiple cameras, the first thing you need to consider is your production venue. It’s a good idea to personally evaluate the unique facets of your production location. Seeing the location in advance of the live shoot is the best way to plan for and head off potential problems. Following are the kinds of things you’ll want to check out:

¦ Where can you set up your video production gear, including your cameras, switcher, lights, microphones, and other equipment?
¦ Is the available lighting adequate or very low, and will you be allowed to position auxiliary lighting fixtures at the venue?
¦ Is there an audio PA or analog audio mixer at the venue that’s available for your use?
¦ How will the venue be at the time you are actively shooting the show? For example, quiet, busy, noisy, dark, or crowded?

Visualize your production. Will there be dancers changing backstage that your cameras might accidentally catch? How about musical performances or ambient music your microphones might pick up? read more...