← Back

How to seize the live streaming opportunity?

With the different lockdowns around the world due to Covid-19, we saw numerous live streams flourishing on the web, indeed, “live streaming is the closest digital analogue to an in-person show”1. With this new habit to listen to music this year, companies and infrastructures tried to adjust with more or less rapidity and efficiency. “The live streaming sector has no shortage of supply or demand, but it does lack a coherent infrastructure in between. Investment is flowing fast into the sector” of livestream2.

How to seize the live stream oppor­tun­ity? What are the do’s and the don’ts? As an artist, what are the pos­sib­il­it­ies to live stream?

“The goal is not to rep­lic­ate the activ­ity, but to recre­ate the emo­tions people feel when they go out.” Bas Grasmay­er — artist & entrepreneur

TO KEEP IN MIND

  • Not always live

A lot of live streams are actu­ally not live events. Music was recor­ded in advance, as well as the video clip. Often, it allows a bet­ter sound and image qual­ity and it’s an insur­ance against the unpre­dict­able. How­ever, work­ing that way pre­vents you from inter­ac­tions with the fans.

  • If you opt for a real live stream 

Make it spe­cial, rare, lim­ited and unpre­dict­able. Don’t pre­tend to reach every­one just because this is access­ible online.

  • If you chose to monetize 

Be aware that some artists are driv­ing more rev­en­ue from mer­chand­ise sales than from actu­al live stream tick­et sales, and when giv­en the option, more than 50% of fans select the multi-day tick­et option over a single day ticket.

  • Care about the fan engagement

To “get some fans in front of your vir­tu­al stage, you’d bet­ter have a loy­al and engaged fan base who will not only pay but stay and inter­act dur­ing the live stream. Fan engage­ment is a con­tinu­ous & reward­ing effort”, it is not only about pro­mot­ing a show or a con­cert. Attendees need to feel that they belong there and that they are tak­ing part in a unique exper­i­ence. Like a Live Event. 

Study Dancing GIF

TECHNICAL SETTING

The most basic set up to live stream is to have a com­puter with OBS and an inter­net con­nex­ion. From this set up you can broad­cast videos that you pre-recor­ded to Face­book, You­tube, Twitch, etc (even Ins­tagram if you install Yel­low Duck on your computer). 

It is highly recom­men­ded to do pre-recor­ded live if your inter­net con­nex­ion is not good or if you use a com­puter that isn’t really power­ful (espe­cially if you have a ses­sion on your DAW with mul­tiple tracks record­ing at the same time).

If you want to go fur­ther there are a few options that can provide more sta­bil­ity to broad­cast pre-recor­ded live. OneS­tream or ReStream are simple and quite stable.

As the qual­ity of your live stream will depend on the video and audio qual­ity, it is sug­ges­ted to use a good micro­phone (or a sound­card with mul­tiple inputs to cap­ture the sound) and also a good video cam­era to record your live. Some Cam­era brands, like Sony, Fuji­film or Can­on offer the video from the cam­era to be recor­ded into the com­puter dir­ectly. This enables you to do real-time live stream­ing if you set up OBS to get the video from a video source.

Here is a video explain­ing how to set up OBS.

FOCUS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

The scenery and the atmo­sphere are import­ant. Bear in mind that you can choose to make a cosy even­ing event in your apart­ment but you can also make it spe­cial by anti­cip­at­ing and approach­ing con­certs or tour­ist­ic ven­ues in the area that could be inter­ested to host you for a live event and to bene­fit from your audi­ence for instance.

LIVE-STREAM PLATFORMS

1 9 things we learned from tick­et­ing 90 live stream con­certs part 2, Dav­id McKay / CEO & Co-founder of Seated https://blog.seated.com/9‑things-we-learned-from-ticketing-90-live-stream-concerts-part‑2/

2Vir­tu­al con­fer­ences & con­certs - Yvan Bou­d­illet, Oct. 2020
https://selected.sesamers.com/virtual-conferences-and-concerts/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=sesamers

Slash Program

Slash is a Europe-wide train­ing pro­gram build-up by Trem­po with the great sup­port of SACEM. It aims to train emer­ging pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians in their career devel­op­ment. It is co-fin­anced by the European Uni­on through its Cre­at­ive Europe pro­gram (Music Moves Europe).

The European Commission’s sup­port for the pro­duc­tion of this pub­lic­a­tion does not con­sti­tute an endorse­ment of the con­tents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Com­mis­sion can­not be held respons­ible for any use which may be made of the inform­a­tion con­tained therein.

Contact →