Editing your event gives you creative control of everything the audience sees, and helps to create a seamless virtual experience. On the other hand, not editing your event, and streaming the whole thing live, will make the event feel more real, and help everyone connect in the moment. So the question is — which one is better? And can we do both? For this article, we took a look at a few recent events, and made some notes on the best times to edit all of your event, some of it, or none of it. Spoiler alert: You can do all three!
Edit all of your event for maximum impact.
UNLV National Girls and Women in Sports Day
The University of Las Vegas created a virtual sports clinic to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and promote fitness and wellness for women in sports. The event was shot over multiple locations, both indoor and outdoor, and on various athletic fields, all over the UNLV campus. The clips were then edited together to create one, seamless event. To do an event like this live, over Zoom, in all these different places, would have way too many variables. There would have had to be cameras everywhere, and those cameras would have to broadcast high quality sound and video, all outdoors. It’s just not possible. Using video editing to piece everything together, in this case, ensured that the presenters could produce a high quality experience wherever they happened to be on campus. Even at the track!
Sundance Daily Recap
Sundance festival created daily highlight reels to give audiences a brief look at everything that happened each day. These were short videos, under 5 minute each, that included interviews, attendee footage, movie scenes, and everything else that goes into the film festival. More importantly, they helped guide attendees to what to watch, or rewatch. We’d love to see this concept of daily highlight reels at more events. Organizers can encourage presenters, vendors, and attendees to contribute at home footage to help create a fuller experience for everyone watching. Not only that, an edited highlight reel will help market your content, and encourage people to buy a ticket so they can go back and watch the first day of the event. Now that’s a good use of editing!
Edit some of your event to add compelling commentary.
Fender Play Live 2020 Edit all of it –
Fender Guitars edited together a livestream using the best moments from Play Live 2020 (an ongoing event where guitarists performed virtually). Live commentary was then added to the performances, along with a bit more guitar playing from the hosts. This is a great example of video editing some of a virtual event (but not all), to give an event a live feel, and spark more conversation with the hosts and attendees. It’s also a reminder that if you’ve been doing virtual events for months now, all of that content can be re-edited with new guests or panelists. Or in other words, your past virtual events can help you make more virtual events. Pretty cool, right?
Boiler Room – In The Round
Boiler Room, a music event company, edited footage from one of their recent hybrid music performances, with interviews of the artists and people watching virtually. It wasn’t quite a recap, and not really a live experience, it was more like an insightful documentary created from pieces of the live event. For organizers that are looking to create an experience like this, consider editing an important moment in your event with impactful commentary and interviews. Maybe add some illustration or graphics. Experiment with overlaying the video windows and adding effects. Think about it like you are creating a compelling short film. It will be a great use for your live content, and even better for your brand!
Edit none of your event to make everything more real.
Toronto Zoo Live Virtual Walkthrough
The Toronto Zoo streamed a live, unedited walkthrough of the zoo for an up close look at some tigers, leopards, mountain goats, camels, and more! The audience (mostly students in their education programs) got to see what the animals were up to in real time (on youtube). Anything could have happened. Well maybe not anything. But animals, even at the Zoo are still unpredictable. And anything unpredictable makes for good content, no video editing needed. So what does that mean for organizers that don’t work at the Zoo? It means that if you are working with anything that’s more interesting live and unedited — like sports, animals, music, dancing, or any kind of performance — then just go live! More people will watch it!
Surfline Non-Stop Pipeline Webcam
Surfline livestream video of the world’s best surf breaks when the waves are really good. The streams run the entire day, sunrise to sunset, so people who can’t go on surfing vacation in February (most of us) can still experience the surf. We love this idea of a continuous, unedited livestream, especially leading up to or during an event. The important thing is that you stream something that your audience will appreciate, or think is funny. It could be a time lapse of the virtual or hybrid event space getting set-up. Or a steam of your desk for a day as you organize the event. Or anything that will spark conversation. A sunny beach might even be just the thing right now!
When in doubt, try a little of everything
The nice thing about virtual events is that it’s easy to change it up with a little video editing. For example, you can edit together a perfect, seamless video stream for the first day. On the second day you can bring in panelists to comment over pre-recorded content. And on the third day you can just do the whole thing live, and just focus on conversations with the audience. However you decide to edit or not edit your event, It all works!
If you’re looking for a virtual platform to use for your next virtual or hybrid event, the Expo Pass Virtual Experience is for you. We have the technology and cutting-edge, end-to-end, fully-integrated kind of stuff that could be just what you need to bring your vision to life.
