Live Streaming And Pre-Recording Events.

[ronmac]

I am recently retired (mostly) and living in a rural community in Nova Scotia. We have/had a very active arts scene that punched far above our demographic, drawing audiences from ~150kms. All indoor venues are small (50~200 seats) but manage a few outdoor festivals each year that attract 500~5,000. Being the solo tech guy, and supplying all of the gear, I try to promote as many shows as I can while walking the technical and financial tightrope.

My retirement plan is to only promote and tech shows that bring me more joy than grief. Good luck with that.

I have been investing in video gear the past few years, seeing the trend moving in that direction, and have used my audio and technical management background to build a mini-career in feature film and documentary work. The plan is to completely self-fund all future projects so that I can eliminate the reliance on artists to get their sh#* together. So far, so good.

One of my huge challenges in this area is the lack of stable, high speed internet. This completely rules out any "live to air" shows, and that is a good thing, in my opinion. I want to provide a quality experience for the viewing audience, so that means preparing the stage/set as I would for a live show, rehearsing so that lighting/cameras/audio suits the performance, running the show (with retakes, if necessary), capturing the media and doing what I can in post to stitch it together. The edited product will be presented at a future date and monetized by selling web streaming access and hard media.

I did a trial run by producing a traditional (this was 44th year) Christmas service of Lessons and Carols that was streamed on Christmas Eve. The on-line audience was more than 8 times the capacity of the local host church, and was a financial success. Everyone involved were very pleased with the quality and positive response.

I feel for a lot of musicians who are struggling right now, and are doing what they can to stay in front of their audience. The quality is all over the place, and I can't bear to watch or listen to most of it.

I am not sure that what we have experience the last year will be the "new normal", but I do feel that there is a paying audience for decent quality, locally produced on-line shows.

Time will tell.

Looking forward to further discussion on this topic.

 

[Paul999]

I am recently retired (mostly) and living in a rural community in Nova Scotia. We have/had a very active arts scene that punched far above our demographic, drawing audiences from ~150kms. All indoor venues are small (50~200 seats) but manage a few outdoor festivals each year that attract 500~5,000. Being the solo tech guy, and supplying all of the gear, I try to promote as many shows as I can while walking the technical and financial tightrope.

My retirement plan is to only promote and tech shows that bring me more joy than grief. Good luck with that.

I have been investing in video gear the past few years, seeing the trend moving in that direction, and have used my audio and technical management background to build a mini-career in feature film and documentary work. The plan is to completely self-fund all future projects so that I can eliminate the reliance on artists to get their sh#* together. So far, so good.

One of my huge challenges in this area is the lack of stable, high speed internet. This completely rules out any "live to air" shows, and that is a good thing, in my opinion. I want to provide a quality experience for the viewing audience, so that means preparing the stage/set as I would for a live show, rehearsing so that lighting/cameras/audio suits the performance, running the show (with retakes, if necessary), capturing the media and doing what I can in post to stitch it together. The edited product will be presented at a future date and monetized by selling web streaming access and hard media.

I did a trial run by producing a traditional (this was 44th year) Christmas service of Lessons and Carols that was streamed on Christmas Eve. The on-line audience was more than 8 times the capacity of the local host church, and was a financial success. Everyone involved were very pleased with the quality and positive response.

I feel for a lot of musicians who are struggling right now, and are doing what they can to stay in front of their audience. The quality is all over the place, and I can't bear to watch or listen to most of it.

I am not sure that what we have experience the last year will be the "new normal", but I do feel that there is a paying audience for decent quality, locally produced on-line shows.

Time will tell.

Looking forward to further discussion on this topic.

I love this business model. I am doing some similar things in my neck of the woods (Alberta Canada). I have some colleagues in the maritimes and I am envious of the rich culture and support for live shows there.

There are some internet solutions. I use my cell phone with a huge data package on a shocking number of events in a very stable way. A friend of mine has made a truck with wifi extenders and its own network for surprisingly low dollars to handle press events that have to have stable wifi in odd areas.

I do believe that live streams and locally produced shows are going to be with us in a more impactful way from now on. We are entering into a golden age of video and audio and most people don't even see it IMO. Best of luck to you!

 

[audiokid]

I do believe that live streams and locally produced shows are going to be with us in a more impactful way from now on. We are entering into a golden age of video and audio and most people don't even see it IMO

Very interesting. I know you are busy, Paul. When you have time... more on this please?

 

[Paul999]

Very interesting. I know you are busy, Paul. When you have time... more on this please?

IMO. Every business, government and person is now needing to become their own production house if they want to build a digital following. Having a large following of "fans"(for lack of a better word), will become an asset/requirement on peoples resumes etc. The trend for every social media platform is; It starts out low quality with a young audience, then it ages up and production quality goes up, then it becomes uncool and dies unless it can become part of the fabric of our everyday lives. In bigger streams, Netflix showed Amazon, Google and multiple others that they need to create original content. There is also a huge demand for quality music for streaming services, games, social media posts for business and governments. Audio services live epidemic sound, story blocks etc. are doing very well, giving average creators a way to make quality content.

How this helps me when dealing with corporate and government clients is that I can sell them an audio package that they own the copyrights for. The advantages are:

1. No one else will use their music so it can become part of their branding.
2. If a video house creates a video for you and uses a service like epidemic sound and the video house lets their subscription lapse, the music they used in your video may make your video get blocked because the rights are no longer paid for. I've seen this happen(not with epidemic sounds specifically).

The next way that live streaming will change the world IMO is that now a lot of weddings, funerals and corporate events will want to stream their event for the people that couldn't make it even after everything is open. I've been live streaming events for the last year and as things open up, you have to make it so the people at home can see and experience the event but you also need a system so the people in the primary event can interact with the people at home. For example a bride at a wedding may have extended family that can't make it to a destination wedding. She will want to be able to talk to the people at home. This adds to the production cost and is an add on for production guys like me.

Further, in the near term, everyone is planning vaccination parties where they can celebrate when it is safe again. This will roll out slowly and likely be a mix of in person and live streamed. People will attend several of these. The live industry on the small scale will be the first to boom and as people feel safer the large events will come back. For local musicians this is great news, if you can take advantage of it. There will be money laying all over the ground and the smart people will figure out how to pick it up. This already started to happen in the summer time here when things opened up a little before they shut down again.

My last point, before I go on all day is that many musicians figured out how to earn a bit of money online throughout this pandemic. They will not want to let go of this when things open up. Fans will not want to let go of the online relationships they have with their hero's either. I believe that online fan clubs attended by stars that you pay a subscription for are here to stay as well.

 

[pcrecord]

My retirement plan is to only promote and tech shows that bring me more joy than grief. Good luck with that.

The live scene is kind of another world. Musicians crave for it and when they come close (specially amateurs) they are very sensitive.
I did many multi-bands shows over the years and I've seen many mini wars for stage space, baby tears when switching stage setups (removing and installing drums between bands) things like that.

Also there is the competitive audio tech war, when each bands have it's own tech and must share the same FOH..
Doing small shows where you are the only audio tech is a blessing..
The funiest I saw was this irrogant teck who did arrassed me with 200 questions and complaints on the setup (which wasn't mine) while doing his sound check.
Then other techs including me we all did our sound check. By the time it was his band up, it didn't save his mixer settings on a usb key like we all did.. That was a blast !! hihihi

 

[Paul999]

Also there is the competitive audio tech war, when each bands have it's own tech and must share the same FOH..
Doing small shows where you are the only audio tech is a blessing..

This is so true. It can get even worse with big name acts. I almost got into a fist fight with a tour manager over the placement of a drum set even though I was clear months in advance that we would be striking and resetting the drumset of the headlining act. This tour manager ended up getting into and actual fist fight with another manager at a later show. If my altercation would have ended up in a fist fight it would have ended badly for him. I could see it coming and had 3 guys standing 10 feet away while I had the awkward conversation with the "gentleman".