Are you planning your next virtual event or live stream?
Here are three tips to ensure your virtual event or live stream goes smoothly.
Have a clear outline of what your goals are BEFORE focusing on your technical needs
Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse again
Always have a Plan B
Tip # 1: Have a clear outline of what your goals are BEFORE focusing on your technical needs
Planning a virtual event or live stream can be difficult, especially for smaller organizations and solo entrepreneurs. With so many different factors, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the process. To make things easier, we recommend listing no more than 3 goals for your virtual event or live stream to help you with the planning.
By having clearly defined goals you can potentially:
Save money by not getting overwhelmed in the planning and production process
Not get confused about what needs to be done
Be able to manage your expectations with your team
Tip #2: Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse again
Rehearsing is a must when running a virtual event or live stream. Running through the show 2-3 times on different days will help you deal with potential issues that can arise when live streaming, and it will also give you time to fix any mistakes before they happen in front of your audience.
Having a backup plan is essential so make sure you are taking notes of issues that occur during your tech rehearsal and solutions on how to fix them.
Tip #3: Always have a Plan B
When running a virtual event or live streaming, you only have one time to capture the moment. There are no do-overs, so it's important that you run scenarios through your head and prepare for all possibilities.
For example, what's your backup plan if the video or audio feed goes out? Do you have a standby visual to let viewers know you will return shortly?
Will you have someone moderating the chat to inform viewers of the status of the broadcast? And, despite what others say, recording the event when the intention is to live stream it is not a great alternative.
Finding solutions to manage these potential issues will save you a lot of stress and heartache in the long run.
We often hope for the best but being prepared will lessen your stress by having options in place should something occur.
There are many moving parts when planning a live stream or virtual event, but by incorporating these 3 tips, hopefully, the production planning process becomes more manageable.