Let’s be honest, running an event is hard… You’ve got your budget, you’ve booked a venue and you want it to be great.

Most importantly, you want the time, energy and budget you’ve spend on the event to be worth it.

However even if your event is a raving success, it will still be limited to the number of people you could fit in the room to experience it.

What if the impact didn’t have to end there?

By filming your event the magic is immortalised forever. It's captured in sound and vision to use over and over again.

Whatever cost you put in at the beginning keeps on giving back.

Filming AND live streaming gives you the best of both worlds because the experience is available to a live audience as well as available on demand for all your social media platforms.

At Be Inspired Films we have been supporting organisations to film and live stream their events for almost 10 years now.

We have continued to push our team and remain at the forefront of new technologies, testing them and offering organisations ways to reach, engage and inspire their audiences by live streaming an event.

 WHY YOU’RE NOT ALREADY LIVE STREAMING YOUR EVENTS:

• It might be FEAR

It’s stressful for anyone to step out of their comfort zone. It’s natural to feel fearful when you’re doing something you’ve never done before, especially when failure could risk your reputation.

For some, simply connecting a laptop to a screen at an event stresses them out because it could go wrong in front of the audience. So, you may feel overwhelmed.

You might think, is live streaming an event just one more thing that could go wrong, one more thing to worry about? 

• It might be BUDGET

Money is tight and you already feel stretched, filming doesn’t seem like an option. Considering the cost of hiring a venue, booking your speakers and your caterers, factoring in marketing costs, travel and potentially hotels, you think you've spent enough.  

Filming and live streaming an event is just one more thing to pay for and you can't do everything, right?

• It might be AWARENESS

You simply may not be aware that live streaming is a viable option for you or aware of the different opportunities it can bring. You may not be tuned in to how technology is developing and becoming more accessible and affordable, even for small organisations.

Maybe you've heard of people doing Facebook Live and presumed that was just for people using their phones without realising you can now do professional Facebook Live streams, as well as streaming to Twitter, Youtube and your website simultaneously.

A whole new world of opportunities has opened up that you weren't aware of.

WHAT ADVICE CAN WE GIVE?

1. Find a company with a good track record, great clients and excellent reviews. It’s important that they also fit with your values so they get what you are about and working with them will be fun. Choose a team that cares about the event as much as you do and takes the responsibility from your shoulders.

2. Look to build a trusted partnership with a company where you can get a sense of what's possible so that you can develop your plans to share your message with the world together. This will enable you to discuss possible options without feeling any obligation to purchase or commit before you are ready.

3. Make sure you hire a company who will do all the necessary pre-production  and due diligence when live streaming an event. Don’t just presume that they will turn up on the day, plug in and everything will work. This is a beginners mistake.

4. Think about your distribution. How are you going to advertise the live streaming of the event and how will you integrate it with your overall event offer? You need to discuss and plan a strategy. A good company will be able to advise you on this.

5. If you are nervous, start small. You could do a simple stream with maybe one or two cameras to get used to it before you go for a big production. This can be very affordable and will give you confidence.

Once you have decided to live stream an event, you could also organise sub-events in different global cities so that groups can gather to watch it live and network together.  

It’s not just about getting big numbers to tune in, but getting the right people to attend live by having a pre-planned strategy to promote the event online.  A lot of value from live streaming an event comes from connecting a global audience interested in a particular topic. For example, we streamed an event for UCL (University College London) on the topic of Cognitive Neuroscience Research and they had 673 people watching from 93 countries.

Leaving you with that thought, I have just three questions for you:

• Are you happy with the reach and impact your events currently have?

• Do you feel the content of your event is valuable and worth sharing beyond the people in the room?

• Do you think it’s worth exploring the possibilities filming and live streaming an event could bring?

If you feel this blog has provided you with some useful tips for live streaming an event for your organisation, why not share with others?