How We Made This: Cultivators Live Stream Events
The Cultivators Community hosts virtual events every month. Historically, these events have always on Zoom...until March 2021. We recognized an opportunity to spice things up and try a new approach by live streaming the event on YouTube. Here's how we did it:
March's event was a Cultivator Story–an opportunity to feature Cultivators who have taken their idea from conception to implementation. This time we were featuring Carolina Kunnen and David Borja from Alcon. Together, they created a vlog series focused on helping Alcon employees collaborate during the global pandemic.
This event would be a conversational interview between the host and featured guests– perfect for a live stream. If the audience wanted to ask a question, they could use the live stream chat or comment feature. We felt confident that this would be an excellent way to create variety for our Cultivators' events.
Once we committed to the live stream experience, our first step was to identify the right platform. After all, the event audience would need to watch the live stream somewhere. Standard live stream websites include Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook. There are ways to live stream on Tik Tok, Instagram, and LinkedIn, but Cultivate already had a YouTube channel, making our platform decision easy.
Next was to identify a way to deliver the stream to YouTube. OBS Studio is a free and open-source software suite for recording and live streaming. It allows you to compose scenes with graphics and video overlays, encodes your stream, and then sends it to the live stream platform (YouTube) to broadcast in real-time. Like magic, but different.
Because our live stream involved three individuals (Caroline, David, and myself), we had to solve how all three could be seen on camera. This is where Zoom comes in handy. Thanks to Zoom's straightforward interface and recent popularity, it was a no-brainer to have Carolina and David dial into a familiar Zoom call so that the three of us could have our conversation in a comfortable setting. All I had to do was import the Zoom call into my OBS scene to broadcast our Zoom call to our YouTube channel for the viewers to watch without having to dial in themselves.
The easiest way to do this would be to share my Zoom screen through OBS, but that wouldn't look good enough for a Cultivators event. Our viewers deserve better production value than that! I reached out to our Graphic Designer at the time, Abel Sànchez. I asked if he would be willing to create some background overlays for the live stream. We talked about my vision for what it should look like to create something that aligned with the Cultivate brand.
Some key assets included:
Background overlay
Talking head windows
Intro / Starting Soon scene
Outro scene
These assets allowed me to construct several scenes in OBS so that I would be able to transition from one to the other during the live stream. We created several options for displaying the speakers (everyone, featured speaker, solo speaker) to have visual variety during the event.
It was time to set up the YouTube channel. This is a simple but essential task that I highly recommend doing before you "go live."
In the YouTube Studio, navigate to the "go live" section and edit the title and description of your stream. You can do this any time you want. I prefer to do it several days before the event because it's an easy step to forget when it's time to go live. This is also an excellent time to grab your stream key and plug it into OBS. You won't be able to broadcast to your YouTube channel without that stream key.
At the same time as technical set-up, I scheduled several rehearsals with Carolina and David to ensure that their cameras, lighting, and microphones were set up correctly. We also reviewed the agenda for the conversation several times to get as comfortable and prepared for the live stream as possible. They were fantastic throughout this process.
Any time you're live streaming, there is always a risk of something going wrong. Your internet may disconnect, or your computer may crash. With that in mind, we created a "Tech Backup" plan, where a third person can fill in if the host (who is broadcasting the stream) falls offline. By having this third-person push the "go live" button on YouTube, the stream will not stop if the host (with the Zoom call and OBS) crashes. The YouTube screen would go black, and the tech backup could communicate to the viewers by typing in the comments section.
About 30 minutes before the event's start, I started the Zoom call with Carolina and David to make any last-minute adjustments to our frames, cameras, lighting, and microphones. We tested the screen transitions one last time. Then, I muted each person's microphone and played some copyright-free streaming music with the 'Starting Soon' screen. We were ready to go live!
Our Tech Backup logged into YouTube and clicked the "go live" button. I pushed the "Start Streaming" button in OBS, and the YouTube channel sent alerts to all of our subscribers that we were live!
One thing to note is when you're live streaming– your audience doesn't see or hear you in real-time. There is a 7-15 second delay. I take this into account when reading viewer comments on-air. While talking to Carolina and David, I would periodically check the comments on YouTube. If a viewer posted a question or comment for our guests, I would weave it into the conversation at a time when it felt right. This is how you can make a live stream event just as interactive as a Zoom call.
As the event ended, our Tech Backup (who also served as a chat moderator) posted a link in chat to our event feedback survey. We use this feedback to determine if we should continue offering these types of events while identifying any tweaks that we can make to the format.
Another benefit to live streaming on YouTube is that you don't have to download, edit, and upload your recorded version. YouTube processes the stream and keeps it available on your channel for your subscribers to watch anytime. However, we still download them to make 1-minute audiogram clips of some of the highlights. These are perfect for sharing post-event on your social channels.
The event experience was a huge success. One of our Cultivators reached out to Carolina after the event to ask for help making their idea happen at her place of work. That's the reason we do what we do!
Since then, we've hosted several live streams, with more to come in the future. It's safe to say there's no looking back.
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