Live Streaming Events Businesses – the Future of the Events Industry
An audio-visual hire company that adds live streaming to its services meets a problem the AV side never had: venues rarely offer an internet connection you can trust with a paying client’s broadcast, and one saturated line ruins the job in front of the audience.
Speedify is software that pools every internet connection a crew can reach – venue Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 4G/5G cellular data, Starlink – into a single upload path, so no one line can take the stream down.
Martin Burden of AudioHire UK explains the challenges his crews hit and what changed once they streamed over Speedify; Speedify can work through the same ground with your events business.
The Context
As a company, AudioHire started in one form or another in about 1992. They were originally a rock and roll type hire company, where they did microphones for recording studios, recording equipment and instruments.
In 2014, Martin Burden took it over and turned it into more of a corporate AV company – doing more events. When the pandemic hit, AudioHire had a really busy period coming up; March, April, May 2020 were supposed to be busy. Martin had to think pretty quickly because the company was gonna face liquidation otherwise.
“So I’ve been working with other people doing video streaming and I saw lots of people kept talking about virtual events. The way out I saw was to invest whatever I had, any personal money and any money I could get out of the company.”, says Martin Burden. He bought camera equipment, extra computers, streaming gear and then spent a few months testing and learning the new live streaming skills.
Challenges for Live Streaming Events Businesses
Reliable Internet is what makes or breaks a successful live stream. That said, a lot of the corporate places have got really good internet connections. That’s because they’ve got massive IT teams that have spent years creating their dream networks, so those are quite solid.
But when it comes to remote places , things dramatically change. In the middle of nowhere there’s no electricity and there’s no Internet.
Solutions for Reliable Internet for Live Streaming Events
Martin had been trying out different 4G routers, which had been okay if you were able to find a good place in the middle of London. That’s because you usually don’t have a problem with 4G cellular signal there. But, as he mentions, it’s trial and error – sometimes one router will work on different accounts.
Next thing he considered were bonding routers. “But I’ve sort of seen limitations in those. And not only that with the limitations, but paying a thousand quid for this box that you could only put two dongles in…”
Speedify was suggested to him in a group on Facebook. So he gave it a go. He hooked up all his available connections to his MacBook Pro and…
Speedify Is Used on Millions of Devices Worldwide
Speedify has powered stronger Internet for millions of consumers since 2014
15M
Millions of Speedify downloads worldwide, and growing every day5⭐️
More than 75,000 5-star reviews for Speedify in the iOS and Android app stores82
Points of Speedify presence in datacenters around the globe500TB
Hundreds of terabytes of fast, secure data streamed every week via SpeedifySpeedify Partners
Speedify partners with these amazing organizations to deliver better internet and next-generation networking technology to their customers and employees.
The Result: Successful Live Streams of Events
Martin uses a MacBook Pro with a few connections, depending on the location:
- wired Ethernet
- USB 4G cellular dongle
- Wi-Fi router connected via USB-to-Ethernet
- tethered smartphone
The first impression was very exciting: the Internet was faster than the home broadband.
“The failover I found on the Speedify is great. I tried when I was experimenting with it. I tried all sorts of different things – I would do a test stream and I’d do things like pulling plugs out just to see if it would fail. Just trying to make it fail. I’ve never got total failure from it, I’ve managed to get it to sort of slow down a little bit so that it sort of buffered once, but that was literally like a second. And I’ve tried my hardest to break it, I’ve really tried to make it not work because you want to be prepared for anything that could fail. And I can’t make it not work!”, says Martin Burden of AudioHire.
He also added: “You’ve got something as powerful as any of those gadgets that cost like thousands of pounds. At the moment Audiohire skinned – we’re trying to make some money trying to survive and Speedify has just made that possible. It’s given that peace of mind to be able to handle things like remote celebrations, remote speeches, anything where there’s no Internet.”
How Speedify Can Help You
When you’re having issues with your Internet connection, try using all your available connections simultaneously. At the very least, along with the home or event location Internet, you certainly have a smartphone with a cellular data plan. You’ll get more reliable and faster Internet. That’s one of the essential ingredients for a successful live streaming events business.
Even if you don’t have two connections available, Speedify can still help. Its powerful error correction algorithms minimize packet loss on wireless networks. So even if you only have one connection available, Speedify will still be able to help you with more reliable Internet.
Speedify Business Solutions
Speedify Teams
Speedify for Routers
Speedify Embedded Solutions and Integrations
Embed Speedify software into your app or hardware products and leverage the core channel bonding technology of Speedify in new and interesting ways.