Unveiling the Technical Production Secrets: How to Effectively Utilize Comms in Live Events

This event at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry saw Confidence Digital working as part of a much larger event production team.

I was managing the outgoing streaming elements to allow a remote audience to watch this live 'in person' event.

When working on smaller events, the technical team all muck in and do a bit of everything to get the show going. But when its a larger production, we tend to split into teams based on the various technical fields.

There will be a team organising everything related to the sound systems and microphones. Another team for the lighting, another for set and staging. There will be someone to look after the on screen graphics like PowerPoint slides and video clips. and in this case, someone to separately manage the outgoing video stream.

In order to keep everyone focussed, there is a producer who manages and coordinates the actions of each of these teams, and translates what the customer wants from the show, into clear and concise instructions for the technicians who are pressing the buttons.

Obviously the entire team need to be able to communicate whilst the show is actually live, so the event crew wear headsets, or 'Comms', to listen for their instructions from the shows producer.

He or she can talk to the cameramen to tell them where to point their camera, cue any videos or music stings that might be required, and possibly the most important task of all; to make decisions when things deviate from the script or there is an unexpected change to the running order. This is vital to ensure that the technical team all act in a coordinated way.

Over the headsets they can do that in a virtual whisper so the audience, often sat just a few feet away, cant hear the team chatting.

Confidence Digital can supply technical comms systems, using our stock of British designed and built Ultra Light & Sound ULStage Comms. for more information contact us hello@confidence-digital.com