How to plan a conference live stream
From the goal of the event to measuring the result. What to get ready before you start thinking about cameras.
When you’re in charge of a conference live stream, most of the work happens before anyone switches on a camera. This is the order we tackle it in.
1. Planning
- Get clear on the goal. Do you want to launch a product, educate an audience, or get a discussion going? The format and the length of the programme follow from that.
- Choose the format. A purely online conference, or a hybrid one with an audience in the room? A hybrid event asks more of the sound and the vision mixing, because you’re serving two audiences at once.
- Map out the programme. With breaks and time for questions. An online viewer stays focused for less time than someone in the room.
2. The tech
- Platform. Zoom, Teams, YouTube, or your own website? Choose by what else you need - polls, chat, restricted access.
- Equipment. Camera, microphones and lighting. At a hybrid event especially: the online viewer should see and hear as well as someone in the room.
- Internet. The most important item, and the most often underestimated. Ask for the actual speed and have a backup connection.
3. Content
- Slides. Readable on a phone too. What’s small on the screen in the room is unreadable online.
- Interaction. Polls and Q&A hold attention. Agree in advance who collects the questions and who passes them to the speaker.
- Rehearsal. Run through the whole chain for real before the first guest arrives.
4. On the day
- A technician on site. Not someone who starts the stream and leaves. Someone who fixes a problem while you’re on air.
- A host. The link between the room and the online audience. Without one, the online viewer feels like an onlooker.
- Recording. Record locally too, independently of the stream.
5. After the event
- Feedback. A short questionnaire within two days, while people still remember the event.
- Numbers. How many people joined, how long they stayed, where they dropped off. You plan next year better from that than from impressions.
6. Promotion
- Channels. Tell people about the event where your audience already is, not everywhere.
- Registration. As simple as possible, with a reminder a few days before.
You can tell a well-prepared conference by the fact that on the day there’s nothing left to sort out.
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