How to pivot your events to livestreaming.
It’s no secret that COVID-19 temporarily wiped out events in New Zealand. High-profile cancelled events included the NZ Fitness & Health Expo, the Auckland Pasifika Festival, Beervana and all performances from the NZ Symphony Orchestra (NZSO). But digital technology has offered the industry a way out in the form of livestreaming.
Prior to COVID-19, livestreaming was gathering momentum. It was an increasingly popular way to beam in international speakers without the hassle and expense of flying them across the globe, and using social channels like Facebook Live and YouTube helped companies create tighter linkages between these and the real world.
Clever events managers would often record these livestreams and use that recording to later produce a more polished video breakdown of the event.
Thanks to all the above benefits, livestreaming was once considered a promising support act behind physical events, but then, suddenly, COVID-19 killed the headliner. Livestreaming stepped into the newly-vacated spotlight, and now, just about all of us are merrily streaming our favourite events.
Creating a livestream of your event isn’t as simple as putting your iPhone on horizontal mode and hitting ‘Go’, however. To produce a professional-quality livestream, you’ll need to come up with the following.
High-quality camera. You can get away with a top-of-the-line phone camera (minimum 1080p) if you’re going for an intimate, personal vibe, but you’ll need to accept that, to many people, the video will look as if it’s been filmed with a toaster. If you’re shooting a professional-level event, you’ll need a broadcast-standard camera which shoots in HD to 4k format.
Microphones. It’s never a good idea to rely on your smartphone’s inbuilt microphones for any kind of professional-quality production. This is because positioning your smartphone to accurately capture video is directly incompatible with positioning it to accurately capture sound. You must choose one or the other, and smartphone cameras tend to be better-quality than smartphone microphones. Instead, tailor your microphone needs to your job. Seminar-style presentations will suit either a handheld microphone, a lapel, or a lectern. If it’s a sit-down interview, go with a carefully-positioned lapel.
Technician. Behind the scenes as your event is running, the AV technician will wrangle the audio and video feeds as they come in. They’ll use a variety of interfaces and software to tidy the feeds up with colour-correction, graphic overlaps and watermarks; plus adding EQ, dynamics and levelling to the audio. When the inputs are suitably polished, the tech will then manage the outputs to your chosen livestreaming platforms as well as recording.
An experienced audio technician will be able to handle all of the above for you. They can make it feel as easy as whipping out your iPhone, but the result will be as different to those fuzzy phone videos as the Oscars are to a TikTok.
PJ Audio has been handling the livestreaming for Auckland Council’s meetings throughout the lockdown period via Tandem Studios, and has now acquired the tech to expand these services to other clients.