CMU School of Drama


Friday, April 17, 2020

Triple-Threat Production: Sound Reinforcement (Streamed & Networked) Across Three Venues

ProSoundWeb: For nearly two decades, the 268 Generation, a Christian organization that hosts gatherings worldwide of college students between the ages of 18 and 25, has traditionally held its annual U.S. national Passion Conferences at multiple venues throughout January and February.

For the recent Passion 2016, however, organizers vowed to bring an identical experience to all attendees, ambitiously staging simultaneous three-day events at three locations, with real-time audio, video, and control data streaming and synchronized between the locations, and with a webcast to the world.

1 comment:

Margaret Shumate said...

I have to be honest; I'm very disappointed. Based on the title of this article, I thought it was going to detail a system in which an artist in one venue was broadcast to audiences in 3, in real time. I'm not sure if we are there yet or not. It could certainly be an interesting concept if we are. A band could have several crews and mixers that tour independently, setting up several venues at once, and ideally connecting them in some way. If the audience and the band in one venue could hear the sound of the audience in the others, it could be pretty cool. For more mundane tasks, a lecturer simultaneously lecturing live in one place and through a video wall and a sound system simultaneously in other places could better connect with multiple venues, and as long as the communication was two way, could still take questions from people in one of the auxiliary venues. It might be able to cut down on travel and audience size a bit, without sacrificing too much of the quality of the interaction. I'm not sure if we're there yet. and I'm not sure how effective it would really be, but it's an interesting idea.