Fintech South 2021 - Behind-The-Scenes at Atlanta's Premier Fintech Event.
Fintech South is back for their 2021 conference in Atlanta! Returning in a virtual format as it was in 2020, the event organizers, The Technology Association of Georgia or TAG, took everything they learned from last year's event and amplified it into a three-day streaming extravaganza.
With live emcees, a celebrity visit from Ludacris, performances from Atlanta's music scene, and stages that catered to the entire world, this event was massive on every level - so it only made sense that the production would be equally as exciting.
What We Did
event.video was tasked with creating an environment that matched the style of Fintech South, and that would also allow for branding to be interchanged on the fly. We opted for a digital set and produced all of the live studio segments from a green screen in Atlanta called Studio Space Atlanta. This method gave our team the flexibility needed for such a fast-paced production.
All production performed everything live from our green screen studio, including the background replacement. Our on-screen talent, Mike and Maija, could see the final image of what the online audience was watching with no delay, and after a short time, they forgot that we had sat them inside a giant green box. Providing this final image aided their performances as often you hear of actors negatively affected by the green space. If they can see it, however, then they can feel it.
Our digital studio also allowed us to replace sponsored content on the screens around the "set," which we could loop behind the emcees, adding to the realism of the virtual studio. Our goal was to let the studio fade into the background as something you just accepted as authentic. We believe we achieved this.
Things We Had to Consider
Dialogue on Cue
The scripts for this event were huge and ao memorizing each line was improbable. To counter this, we brought in a teleprompter to assist with script delivery, which proved to be an invaluable tool. A secondary benefit gave us one-way communication to on-screen talent when sessions needed to wrap up. It was a great system and one we would highly recommend for production on this scale.
Audio
One of the responsibilities of our live emcees was to interview virtual guests (speakers outside of our studio environment). It seems simple until you consider that our emcees are not sat in front of computers or phones like a Zoom call. Instead, they are isolated from technology. To get around this, we needed to feed audio into their earpieces from the virtual calls and give them a monitor on set that would show them with whom they were speaking. Of course, a lot do audio configuration goes into such a simple concept. Still, thanks to extensive testing, we never experienced a dropped call or audio issue throughout, making great conversations between speakers.
Set Changes
On occasion, there was a need to change the studio to accommodate more on-stage talent or rotate through in-studio guest speakers. Here is where the seconds mattered. First, we needed to remove chairs, microphones, and cabling to accommodate the changes in under 3 minutes before we were on-air again. Then, thanks to a well-choreographed dance, we could make set changes and reposition on-screen talent before we ran out of time.
An event of this scale relies on a global effort from our team. Everyone was involved, whether in the Atlanta-based studio, working remotely on sessions in the cloud, or running green rooms for upcoming speakers. Our teamwork helped this event flow from start to finish, and with our use of cloud-based technology, we can produce this tv-quality livestreaming anywhere in the world.
If you're thinking of running a hybrid event, why not get in touch for a chat? We've made it simple so you can focus on running a successful event. Click here to get in touch.