When you are having a live event, you should work and give the attendees a perfect live-streaming event. Nobody enjoys a choppy and glitch broadcast. Thankfully, there are several things you can do to give your live event an excellent look. These things include:

Prioritize the audience experience.

Your audience will drop off when they don’t have a great experience. 

Studies show that users’ attention is held 10-20x longer by live videos than by pre-recorded or on-demand information. Due to this, limit the number of recorded videos you show. Instead, have some time to engage with the audience at all times. 

You should have an audience engagement strategy in place. Understand when and how to incorporate feedback and Q&A sessions. Then, inform your attendees of this information. 

If you’ve ever seen a live feed, you’ll notice that the comments come in thick and fast.

This might be intimidating, especially if the comments necessitate a customized response. To maintain engagement, have a dedicated team monitoring comments and queries.

To know areas to improve on in the future, measure engagement, and collect attendee data.

You can do the work yourself, but if this is your first time doing it, work with live event production companies that will hold your hand and show you the ropes. 

The companies will also come with live streaming equipment, making your work easy. 

Test the equipment before the event.

The last thing you want is for your audience to say they can’t see or hear you. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, ensure that all of your audio and visual equipment is operational during rehearsal and on the stream day.

It’s also crucial to think about how you look and sound. Remember, you must keep your audience’s attention while avoiding distractions like bad lighting and noise interference. This calls for you to ensure that all systems work before you start the event. 

Regarding the site choice, a peaceful environment with no distractions or buzzing sounds from an air conditioning machine is the most ideal. Even if you don’t have access to a professional studio, you can adjust your camera angle to eliminate backlighting from windows or room lighting.

For the best stream quality, go for gentle illumination uniformly distributed around your face. Ring lights are an excellent low-cost option you can go with.

Check that your network can handle a live feed as well. A wired internet connection is required to stream high-quality video.

Going live with a terrible internet connection, audio, and video is a definite way to fail a live stream. As mentioned, viewers have a low tolerance for poor streaming quality, so make sure you have enough bandwidth.

Testing your equipment and connection beforehand should iron out any kinks and allow you to plan for mishaps.

Ensure you have stable electricity.

Your feed will fail if there is no power. Remember that the larger the production, the more power you need.

If you have everything on the same circuit and the circuit fails, everything will fail, including the stream, and you don’t want this, do you?

To avoid this, ensure that every piece of equipment has its circuit. 

Lights have their circuit, audio has its circuit, and encoders also have their circuit.

Many live streaming sites will place encoders on multiple circuits to generate redundancy and will use an uninterrupted power source as a backup if the power goes out.

This ensures that the stream never fully fails if one of the circuits fails.

Have a master control and encoder area.

Although it may appear simple, many people forget to have a table for their master control, switcher, and encoders, which is wrong. 

Enough room and seating for your crew is essential to a successful stream. Your master controls must be in a comfortable, secure location so the live production team can cooperate effectively and edit the live broadcast without disruptions.

You need a live production switcher when you have more than one camera and want to mix between several camera viewpoints during the live broadcast.

Have a plan

Even if you have been doing it for a long time, you should plan for your live-stream event ahead of time.

The audience has a lot of options, so you’ll want to make a strong first impression on your live-streaming audience by standing out.

One of the most serious difficulties with live video quality is failure to begin on time. If the start time surpasses 2 seconds, the abandonment rate increases dramatically. Each subsequent second increases the likelihood of viewers jumping ship by 6%.

This means you should stick to the promised time to go live. If there are hiccups in your equipment, let the viewers know about it. Don’t just go silent. 

As much as you want to give your audience a great experience, remember that it’s not only about the equipment. You should also consider the content and ensure that it is high quality. 

You should have powerful keynotes and interesting workshops catered to your attendees.

Ensure you have all the materials you need before going live, including pre-recorded films, presentation decks, and other relevant documents. 

Parting shot

Your goal is to ensure everything is ready on time and in working order before you invite your guests online. 

As mentioned, you should have a plan and be clear about how you move from one topic to the next.

For peace of mind, everything will work how it should: have a rehearsal a day before the event. This way, you will optimize output and smooth out any kinks. 

Even during the event day, practice with Audio Visual Rentals MD before you start the event and ensure all the equipment works before you go live.