How to stream a live event
After a year of zoom calls and facetime, live streams for events are clearly here to stay. As much as we love to attend events in person, creating live stream events can be a great way to reach a bigger audience, and at the moment, in a safe way. Today we thought we'd break down how to stream a live event of your own. Whether it's for a corporate workshop, a live gig or a play, live streaming events is easy when you know how.
What kind of event are you planning on doing?
The first thing to consider is what style of event you want and is it a paid or free event.
Style of Event
There are many different types of event that people may want to live stream:
Corporate events such as workshops, training or conferences
Performance-based such as gigs or plays
Educational events like seminars or exercise classes
Charitable organisations that want to do fundraisers
Social like a party or reunion
Each will need to consider the set up of the venue, which equipment and platform to use for their live stream and how you'll handle interactions. You should approach live streaming event planning in the same way you would a physical event and try to plan every aspect of it thoroughly.
Ticket Options
Another thing to consider is whether this will be a paid or free event. This distinction will determine if you need to set up a ticket service beforehand to take payments, (or book places if free but with limited availability) and whether your stream will be made public or through a private link.
How to Live Stream An Event
Once you have decided on your style of event and ticketing, you need to ensure that you make the streaming as smooth as possible for your audience. You need to know what equipment you'll need, what platform to stream it on and how to interact with your audience.
Equipment For Live Streaming Events
Live streaming only needs a few pieces of equipment for a basic setup:
Camera(s) and tripods for the visuals
Microphones for the sound
A Video Encoder. The encoder takes your final audio and video stream and turns it into a language that your chosen platform will understand and display as live video.
We always advise you use the best quality equipment available to you so your visuals and audio remain crisp and clear. There are many additional pieces of equipment such as audio and visual mixers, lighting and additional camera equipment to make your live stream worthy of high scale production. If your event is a paid event, we would advise you to work with a production company that will have all the latest high-grade equipment and can help you get the best quality stream for your event.
Choose Your Streaming Platform
To stream a live event you need an online platform that allows this. Some of the most popular streaming platforms include:
Youtube
Facebook
Instagram
Twitch
Streaming platforms can be private or public, paid or free, streamed only or converted to on-demand after the event. Choose the platform that works best for your event needs and audience.
Interacting With Your Audience
The best events are interactive so consider this when choosing your streaming platform and consider additional equipment you might need. Some streaming platforms allow direct chats so audiences can interact with other audience members, as well as the hosts. Depending on the type of performance. you may want to consider having a phone, tablet or laptop close by to those presenting so they can read comments and answer questions. It's also good to have a chain of conversation open so the audience can alert any technicians to faults in the live stream. Sometimes sound or visuals freeze or become garbled so it's important to catch any technical errors as soon as they occur.
Do You Need to Stream a Live Event?
Get in touch with Isaac Who today and we can organise your complete live stream event. From the venue to equipment, additional staff to lighting, we can help you create an amazing live stream event for your audiences. We work with businesses, charities and performers, so whatever event you have in mind, we can help you create your vision.