The biggest production of my career (part 1)

6 computers running OBS… 14 ElGato Cam Like 4k capture devices … hundreds of feet of HDMI cables… 30 microphones…. 6 audio mixers… hundreds of feet of xlr cables…. 20+ iMac computers… 3 rolls of gaffe tape… a ton of sweat.. No blood (that I know of)... no tears (that I know of)... a couple of expletives… all to produce over 125 hours of live content over two days… by far, the biggest live stream event of my life! 

I have never been one to back down from a challenge when it comes to a live stream. When I started live streaming events in 2010, I remember struggling to get over the “lack of internet” hurdle. We would go to a location and not have any connection at all or just enough to open google. Since 2020, the internet has become a priority for every municipality and that’s no longer the hurdle. The 2023 hurdle is the capacity hurdle. “Can we do that?” is now the biggest question I get. 

I started as the University of Georgia’s journalism school broadcast engineer in June. I was quickly made aware of the election show planned for November. It was a big deal because it was going to be three hours of wall to wall coverage. We dug in and made it a much bigger deal by adding nine live shots via zoom to the plan of two LiveU units and several in house shots. In August, I was made aware that the university hosts the National Press Photographers Association Best Of Photojournalism contest in February and the hope was to stream the six judging panels live. My immediate thought was “no problem.” 

Then I found out the rest of the details…well, most of the details. 

Each session would feature 4-5 judges, a moderator, the need for a computer to set up the streaming, a computer to play the submissions (which must also be in the stream), microphones for the judges, and the judging would last 10-12 hours for two days - a Saturday and Sunday. These judges would be reviewing over 50,000 pieces of media from thousands of submissions for over 90 awards. I didn’t back down from the challenge but I certainly wasn’t looking forward to trying to tackle it.

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to share with you the process we went through to create this massive event. I will share with you the moment that I let out a string of words that I really regret, the reason I spent an extra $300 on equipment, and most importantly for you how you can streamline your approach with your students to create massive events like this and not go insane.

Make sure you check out the next part of this series to be released on Friday, March 3, 2023

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Meet the Author, Tom White

Tom White is the Broadcast Engineer at Grady College of Journalism and Communication at the University of Georgia. Prior to that role, Tom taught at Morgan County High School and Rockdale Career Academy where he and his student produced thousands of live streams for sports, news, and community events. Tom’s program at the Rockdale Career Academy received the NFHS Network Program Of The Year in 2016 and his program at Morgan County High School received the New Program of the Year title in 2018.

Tom has been a long time contributor to many publications and is the host of Teaching to The Test Pattern Podcast.

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