How to seize the live streaming opportunity?

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.

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

Band­camp (since Novem­ber 2020)
Twitch
Sin­gleMusic
Man­dolin
Moment House
Face­book
Ins­tagram
Crowd­cast
Epi­qur
Key
Rqstiv­al

1 9 things we learned from tick­et­ing 90 live stream con­certs part 2, Dav­id McKay / CEO & Co-founder of Seated

2Vir­tu­al con­fer­ences & con­certs – Yvan Bou­d­illet, Oct. 2020