One advantage with live streaming events is that people can join even though cost and/or time stops them from attending in person. Thanks to low cost video meeting solutions, like Skype, it is very affordable to also include remote presenters.
In our studio (WeStudioU) our customers can easily choose to invoke reporters, presenters and viewers via Skype. See for example the press event for Blank Spot Project or Studio Hockeyettan (5 minutes in).
But of course this is possible at any event. It takes a little bit of planning and preparation. But the result can be impressive. Like recently at VINNOVA:s Annual Conference 2015. The first video below illustrates how it looked for those who attended in place at Stockholm Waterfront:
The live viewers saw it slightly different, as shown in this video from the conference documentation.
Daniel Rencrantz was connected via Skype on his laptop from the entrance hall at a conference center in Maastricht, Belgium. Unfortunately there was no proper tables available. Instead he arranged a solution using a waste basked and a pile of papers as shown on the image here. A clearly innovative solution!
Daniel also used a Bluetooth earset so that he could move freely, listen in, and of course talk to us. The earset’s microphone took care of reducing the ambient noise from the hall.
This time we arranged it so that Daniel would see the same production as the live viewers. This is why the screen in the image shows himself while talking. This also allowed him to follow the conference until it was time for him to enter the stage (without entering it ;). At other times it might be more important for the remote participant to see the audience, for example whan they ask questions.
On the photo here you can see from left to right: Karl Danielsson operating the live production mix (using vMix); Saga Glauser operating the IMAG (what is projected on the stage’s center screen); and the Skype setup (currently no Skype going on).
For those of you that are technically interested we simply (well…) attached a separate laptop running Skype and mixed Skype’s video out into our production, and our prouction output into Skype’s video in. Then there was some tricky audio routing to eliminate feedback loops. Basically we sent Skype’s audio out to the PA and into our production, as well as made sure that the audio we sent back to Skype did not include the audio coming from Skype (aka “mix minus”).