The Three Pieces of Kit That Make or Break an Event
Published by Switch Live, part of Spiritland Productions
Introduction
Ask most people what makes a live event look and sound great, and they will point to the things they can see: the LED wall, the lighting, the cameras. They matter, of course. But some of the kit that decides whether a show runs smoothly is small, unglamorous and almost invisible to the audience.
We asked ourselves a simple question: what is the one piece of technical kit that can make or break an event? Here is our top three, counting down to the one we think matters most.
Number 3: The professional slide advancer
Arguably the workhorse of the AV world, and everyone notices when it is not working. A presenter who says "next slide, please" loses their flow, and the audience gets a weaker show for it.
The clickers you can pick up on the high street are built for meeting rooms, not for a stage with a technician running content from the tech desk. A professional cueing system uses a dedicated receiver at the desk and gives the operator clear feedback on every cue the presenter sends.
The watch points:
Range. Do not put the receiver at the back of the room and hope it works. Position it properly and test it from every point on the stage where the presenter might stand.
Test before you go live. Test every handset in the room with the presentation machines it will be controlling.
Always run at least two handsets connected to one receiver. One on stage and a spare at the tech table, ready to go.
We will always use a Microcue (made by Interspace Industries) or a DSan system. Both are built for exactly this job, and both have earned their place on our shows.
Number 2: The comfort monitor
A comfort monitor, also known as a DSM (downstage monitor), is a screen at the front of the stage facing the presenter. It is arguably a presenter's best friend!
We customise it to whatever each presenter needs. That might be:
The programme output (PGM), so they can see exactly what is on the screens behind them.
Presenter view, showing the current slide, the next slide and their speaker notes.
A countdown timer with notes, so they always know how long they have left and can receive discreet messages from the tech desk. Stagetimer.io deserves a big shout-out here for how flexible it is with timers and personalised notes.
Speech notes / Autocue, which can be controlled by a technician so a presenter knows what to say and when.
A mixture of all of the above, laid out however suits the presenter.
It sounds like a small detail, but when a presenter feels comfortable, the whole event runs better. When they do not, the audience can tell.
Number 1: The network switch
Our number one is the hardest to explain, because it is the one piece of kit almost nobody outside the tech desk ever thinks about. We think it is so important that we ended up naming the company after it. To give it its due, we asked our co-founder and Technical Director, Antony Shaw, why it earned the top spot.
"Our number one would never feature in a client's or an audience's top three, and to be honest it would never even get a mention. But from a technical perspective, a trusty switch like the Netgear M4250 is the unsung hero that carries every event we deliver."
Antony Shaw, Switch Live's co-founder and Technical Director
A network switch connects every networked device on a show and makes sure each piece of data reaches the right place. Not so long ago, audio, video and comms each travelled down their own dedicated cables. Today, almost all of it has moved onto the network.
"Almost every discipline on a modern show now talks over the network. Audio runs over Dante, carrying every microphone from stage to desk. PTZ cameras are controlled over IP, and video moves between machines over NDI. Our Riedel Bolero comms, playback machines and the timer feeding the presenter's comfort monitor all sit on the same network."
Antony Shaw
That makes the switch one of the most important boxes on the show, and one of the least understood. A basic, unmanaged switch treats every piece of data the same. That is fine for a few laptops in an office, but not for a show where a dropped audio packet becomes an audible click in front of 500 people.
"The switch is where sound, video, GFX and comms meet, so every department works from one connected system. We keep each discipline on its own VLAN so a busy video feed never touches the audio, prioritise the signals that can't afford a delay with QoS, manage multicast properly, and monitor the whole network from the tech desk throughout the show."
Antony Shaw
In plain terms, a VLAN splits one physical switch into several separate networks. QoS (quality of service) puts the most time-critical signals at the front of the queue. And managing multicast stops signals that are sent to many devices at once from flooding the entire network.
"Nobody in the room will ever see it, but if it's not right, everyone will know about it."
Antony Shaw
The Golden Rule
All three of these have one thing in common: when they work, nobody notices them. That is exactly the point.
Whatever the size of your event, test the kit the audience will never see with as much care as the kit they will. Clickers, comfort monitors and the network should all be connected, configured and tested together, in the room, before the audience arrives.
A few questions worth asking your production team:
Which cueing system are you using, and is there a spare handset?
What will each presenter see on the comfort monitor, and has anyone asked them what they need?
Is the show network on a managed switch, and is it kept separate from the venue's network and guest Wi-Fi?
SWITCHLIVE is a broadcast-led live event production company, part of Spiritland Productions. If you have questions about content formats for your next event, we are always happy to talk.
