Face to face is always the best form of communication, but it’s not always possible for a whole host of reasons. There may be time constraints, there may be travel restrictions and there may even be budget limitations. All these things conspire to stop people attending meetings or events. Live video streaming or webcasting is a great solution that enables a viewing audience to engage and interact as if they were there.

We have worked on many live streaming events and the adrenalin pumping experience of a live webcast keeps everyone on their toes. For me and the team the work starts in advance, liaising with the client on timings, location and content. It may be a great location, but the first question we have is does it have suitable connectivity to stream high quality images? A conversation and bandwidth test normally answers this question pretty quickly.

Whilst the client works on the content which is generally quite specialised we set to with the technical requirements and logistics. Do we need a set designing? Will there be an audience on site? How many cameras will we need? At the same time, our team are working on the design to ensure it remains on brand and the registration process to ensure confidentiality and the provision of feedback metrics.

On the day of the webcast with all the testing completed and the presenters in place, we are ready to go live. A good indication of the success of the webcast is the level of viewer interactivity. Receiving plenty of questions through a Q&A facility and responses to polling questions are a good indicator of the level of participation.

Finally, it’s creating the on-demand version of the event. This can be the event in its entirety or an edited down version allowing viewers who missed to ‘catch up’ or those who watched it live to recap. Live streaming is a great way to engage and interact with an audience and when it’s done professionally, it’s a brilliant experience.