Event Deep Dive - Google I/O 2021

By pulling back the curtain on event production, Tim & Tim Talk seeks to entertain and educate our audience as we explore new ideas, technologies, and techniques. Throughout this series, we share ideas to increase your ROI and engagement and improve audience experience for your events. As passionate event professionals, Tim Kay and Tim Kerbavaz are long-time friends and collaborators with over 5,000,000 viewer-hours of live event streams under their belts. Our work spans from Fortune 100 conferences, to higher education and product launches, with audiences up to 30,000+ attendees in person and 100,000+ online viewers.

In this 4-part series, with Tim Kay and Tim Kerbavaz, Take a peek behind a production curtain that few get to experience and even fewer share how it's done! In what may be the first of its kind, we will walk you through what it took planning and executing one of the highest profile Developer Conferences in a fully virtual event model.

Guest Appearance - The Pixilated Podcast

Tim was a guest on The Pixilated Podcast, the only podcast dedicated to bringing daily interviews, tips, and technology for event marketing professionals from seasoned event professionals and entrepreneurs.

Podcast Transcript

Patrick Rife (00:07):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Pixilated podcast. I am your host Patrick Rife, CEO here at Pixilated. Bringing you another episode in our interview series for those of you who have been tuning along this season, you know, that we have been focusing on interviewing tons of amazing people throughout the event, prof diaspora season one Saw us doing a lot of that and then also a lot of other kind of content pieces. But with this season we wanted to really just focus exclusively on connecting with other people building our relationships, and then also like capitalizing on all of this amazing knowledge that people in the events industry have that maybe doesn't make it out to see the light of day as often as it should. So without further ado, I want to welcome Tim from Talon Audio Visual to the call today, Tim, welcome to the Pixilated podcast.

Tim Kerbavaz (00:59):

Hey, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. That event prof diaspora. I like that term, certainly over the last, you know, couple of years, we've definitely seen our industry kind of splitting and dividing and in, in many cases folks leaving. And so I think as you rightly point out, this is the chance to kind of reconvene as an industry and kind of come together and share our lessons learned and growth together.

Patrick Rife (01:27):

Yeah, yeah. And apply all the, we gotta rewrite the rules again for three years in three years. Yeah. Well, so Tim, before we get into, I got a bunch of questions I'm super excited to dig in, but I like to just try and like seed the floor right off the jump because nobody can kind of frame up who you are and what you do better than yourself. So why don't you let everyone know kind of, you know, who you are and a little bit of your, you know, origin story and then we'll get into some questions.

Tim Kerbavaz (01:52):

Yeah. So I'm Tim Kerbavaz. I am the owner of Talon Audio Visual, which is a, you know, production company based in California. Although I say that with some hesitation, because as we talk about kind of evolving landscapes of events and what I do has evolved tremendously in the last few years. You know, I got my start in, in AV as a, you know, child. You know, I remember going to Radio Shack with my grandmother to pick up my, you know, Christmas, present a microphone from Radio Shack. And and that being sort of this thing that I was super excited about and, and literally, you know, it is all downhill from there, you know so much for, you know, being a lawyer or a doctor, I guess, but you know, in terms of that level of kind of delight and excitement has, has stayed with me and I really do love the work that we do as an industry.

Tim Kerbavaz (02:45):

And I think that we do create the light and magic for our customers to what I do specifically and kind of what my work has evolved into. It's been a mix of, you know, I mean, I started out as a, you know, basically a local Retnal and Staging company in Davis, California, and grew over the, the years into sort of a regional provider. And then what I do now has evolved into much less providing equipment and much more providing sort of consulting services and, and production support. So I call myself a technical producer. I work both with my own direct clients and with other production companies and agencies producing events. And one of the things I specialize in particular is event accessibility and localization. So specifically live broadcast captioning and live broadcast translation and localization. And, and so looking at, you know, broadly kind of making events, accessible, making events understandable to your audience is, is something that's super, both interesting to me.

Tim Kerbavaz (03:41):

And, and something that has carried through my career, I've worked you know, in kind of accessibility broadly for, for a number of years. And one of the things that I see as we come into sort of back into ballrooms in person events is that I don't want to leave behind all of the people that we've been able to include with virtual events. And, and I, when I say that virtual events have allowed folks who can't necessarily travel or attend in person for a variety of reasons for, you know, disability for financial reasons, for childcare reasons, for you know, just PAC schedule and can't afford the travel day reasons. There's so many people that are able to be included in virtual events that cannot probably come to our in-person events. And so one of the things I'm interested in as we look at kind of this return to, to events in the ballroom and kind of what does the evolving event landscape look like really is how do we make sure that everything we do is adding to our audience, adding to our inclusivity and not taking things away that we've sort of given people accidentally in some ways.

Patrick Rife (04:45):

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. What a great, what a great summation I wrote down, you like tweaked my brain in a, in a few different ways. And, and one I want to get to back to, but, but poignantly, what you were just mentioning, you know, like this, you know, like the accessibility element, right? The way that it really kind of changed things up. And at first we just, we, we really tended to focus on it a lot through the lens of, you know, like, oh, well, there could be people that are interested in, you know, like for whatever, for a large nonprofit organization that serves, you know, like a very specific kind of cancer, right. That ha that could have a global audience, but it happens to be based in like Des Moines, right? So like the people that are interested or impacted by it, you know, they aren't able to come, but the other side of it is, is accessibility.

Patrick Rife (05:31):

Like doesn't just have to be geographic problems, right. Accessibility is a far broader conversation. And I think it's interesting that you mention that because a previous guest of ours makes stray, she works in sustainability and is based in the UK. And I saw you know, like funnily enough a Twitter thread recently from her talking about the lack of closed captioning being brought into the live event space again, and how, you know, like over the past two years, that gap has been able to be bridged for all of those people who were maybe not thought of previously, because it was convenient to the way that software was working. And maybe we didn't notice it as much before, but now that you have been able to be in that environment and you're back in this live space, and it's not closed, caption, people are raising the flag and saying, wait, you you're missing something that was actually really valuable to us. And, and by the way, it's not negotiable anymore. Like we need you to figure out how that comes in. So I'm curious one, if you saw, I, I think you're probably connected with Meg or at least you're seeing some of her stuff, but I'm curious if you saw that thread or, or have any thoughts about that.

Tim Kerbavaz (06:45):

Yeah. I, unfortunately I missed that thread. I, I am fairly active on Twitter, but in sort of, I think a different circle. And, and so but to that point, I mean, you know, when we talk about accessibility broadly, right, we mean, you know, the ability to access, whatever, right. But there's so many facets to that, particularly in the event space. And as you point out with captioning specifically, which is something that I've been working on for for many years is that, you know, there's all these tools to sort of automate AI based captions for web broadcast. And those tools aren't necessarily as easy to implement in person. Now, I would say I do not really think that AI captions are adequate. I'm actually using them right now in our meeting just to follow along. But I, I do think that you know, if you have an event and audiences that need captions, you really need to pay for human captions and that's captions are generated, live with a human stenographer.

Tim Kerbavaz (07:44):

So like a court reporter, someone who uses like a stenographic cord based keyboard to type, you know, two, 300 words a minute, and, and that works in person just as well as online where you have a stenographer sitting either backstage or remotely, and then their, their texts coming up on typically like screens. And I've done that a lot with either in big, big spaces. You'll do like a ribbon display across the top or bottom of the big projector screens or the, the L led walls for smaller events and, and theaters. I've done like 70, 80 inch TVs just sort of flanking the stage in the orchestra. So, you know, sort of the best seat for captions would be like the orchestra seats. But I do a lot of did in the, in the previous, the, you know, before COVID times a lot of events where we had, you know on onsite screens.

Tim Kerbavaz (08:26):

And I wanna clarify, so when we talk about captions and the UK uses a different terminology here, but in the us when we talk about captions, there's open captions and closed captions, just a little trivia here, closed captions are like on your TV, where you can turn them on and off, there's a button. So whether it's in your YouTube player or on your television, that you can make them go away. Open captions are part of the video, like burned into the video. They're, they're actually just always visible to everyone. And closed captions are metadata. They're not actually part of the video signal. They're, they're basically text data sent along with the video, just a point of trivia there.

Patrick Rife (08:57):

<Laugh> awesome. Awesome. That's a good piece of clarification. I I didn't realize the, the difference between the two, although I definitely am familiar with each one. So that, that, you know, like I think that, I think that that's an interesting, you know, an interesting point and, and you know, what that means, right. Is investing in, in more, an infrastructure and more production to be able to meet that, right. Like that's an additional person, you know, and, and I think that one of the things that we're seeing already, and I think that it's, it's unfortunate, but I'm already seeing lots of clients that are immediately reverting back to live events, and they're just lopping off the virtual, you know, and they're, they're trying to treat it like it's a, you know, an aftertaste that they're ready to, to to dismiss. And I find it to be a bit shocking because, you know, I, if there's one thing that was true is like your audience that was there for your live events in 2019 was not the same audience that you have been directing your, your events to for the last two years, there's a portion of them that are, are there, but every person that migrated had to build a new audience in some regard or another, and what I thought would happen is I really thought that people would glean to this idea of as opposed to producing a live event for this, like set audience, this whole, you know, concept of an ongoing community, right.

Patrick Rife (10:32):

That you're producing content for. And you're making sure that it's available, whether it's in virtual or it's live, or it's, there are hybrid things tying together. And the, but the reality of that is, is now that live events are starting to turn back up these planners. They don't have the resources to be able to do that, and they're having to pick and choose because as you know, very well, you can't take a planner that was responsible for producing event in one arena. And all of a sudden have them be able to produce an event in two arenas that have all different tools and resources. So curious what you're seeing, you know, in regards to that.

Tim Kerbavaz (11:11):

Yeah. You know, I definitely see that where folks are kind of just reverting back to sort of the way things were or the way they sort of used to do things. And, and I understand why, right, as you point out it's, it's resources, it's budget, it's bandwidth as the, you know, event professionals just can't necessarily manage effectively two events at once. And, and so, you know, I think from a, an event professional perspective, I understand why people are doing that from a client perspective. It's super frustrating because I understand that these things cost extra, but I think there's, there really is so much ROI to be had for, you know, adding, you know, maintaining virtual options, maintaining virtual presence, as you said, maintaining online community that keeps that conversation about your company and your product going. And, and I think it's kind of a communication issue of, you know, are we as an industry adequately defining and communicating that real ROI to our clients so that they come up with more money because obviously, right, I can't expect an event planner or a producer to, you know, just magically, you know, make resources appear.

Tim Kerbavaz (12:20):

You know, but I think, you know, part of the challenge, not necessarily as an individual, but as an industry is kind of making that case to our clients about, you know, why you know, maintaining virtual options matters why accessibility matters, why, you know, having captions in your theater or ballroom matters. And, you know, these are all things that are not free, but, you know, I think that there's real reasons that, you know, these things matter both to audiences and to clients. And, and so part of it is gonna be really defining for whom on the client side, each of these various opportunities has the best ROI and then really making that case to them about, you know, for you, why this is the case. And I can say that, you know, the big tech companies are not rushing back to in person events, you know, they're having in person, no, and to some degree, but you know, the big tech launches, I mean, apple is doing all their keynotes, you know, remotely, or, and, and frankly they're, you know, they're you know, just, you know, basically TV show, right.

Tim Kerbavaz (13:24):

And, and I think that I've heard from audiences that, you know, they think the apple keynotes are better now than they have ever been, but it's because they're producing it like a TV show, not like a conference, it's not a press conference anymore. It's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a movie. Right. And so I think one of the things that changes in terms of the way you approach online events versus the way you approach a ballroom event is you don't have a captive audience right now. And I think that in person events often get away with being boring or, or really not engaging because your audience is physically stuck in the ballroom with you and they can't leave. And so it doesn't actually mean they're necessarily paying attention. It just means you they're physically with you, whereas online you're audience, so many other competing, you know, interests right.

Tim Kerbavaz (14:17):

Or competing meaning for their attention that you really are forced to really be compelling. And, and I think when we look at what is a model of a compelling broadcast first event that happens seven days a week, it's your local TV affiliates, nightly news, right? Where they've got a show that has a formula that they have honed over decades to make work, you know, to capture attention. They have you know you know, a host segment that introduces the show. They have remote guests who are reporting from the scene. They have prerecorded video segments, buffering, live segments. They have, you know interstitial segments. They have the weather, right? All these various components that keep the show engaging in dynamic. And I think as a virtual event, that's your model of what a virtual event should look like. It's, it's the news.

Tim Kerbavaz (15:09):

It's not, you know, what your conference used to look like in person. So the challenge is, as we look at, how do you translate that to an event that is both in person and online is how do you maintain the compelling, you know driven, you know, driving timeline of the virtual event while also like giving your in-person events, attendees, a lunch break, right. You know and letting them stop for coffee. And so I, I think, you know, when you're looking at it, it really is kind of two different formulas, but I also think that in-person events could by and large afford to be much more engaging. And I, I, I think that a lot of virtual events have been, or sorry, a lot of in-person event rather have been coasting on the fact that they have a captive audience. And, and I think, you know, a lot of in-person events could, could stand for some shake up too.

Patrick Rife (15:55):

Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more well. So, you know, one of the other things that you said in your intro that I that I would be remiss not to go back to is, is radio shack. You know, like I, I think that that there are certain P people of a certain age will understand what that reference means. You know, like radio shack used to be the place where you could go and get transistors and they had, you know, like little bins of bots and bobs and like all of those things. And, and it was also like, you know, you go look, look at a Tandy computer, like floppy discs, like all of those, you know, like there's a lot of, you know, it's like black light posters and a Spencer as well to a degree, but there's also that thing, you know, it's kind of like the same way that sunny surplus used to be.

Patrick Rife (16:44):

I don't know if you guys have the middle on the east coast, we had a store called sunny surplus and it was like legitimate army surplus, like canteens. And it was like all a buck and 70 cents. Cause it was just all this like war gear <laugh> that was like, we gotta get rid of it, sell it to the public, it like, you know, pennies on, on the dollar. But there were, you know, those kind of stores, right. That open up access to those bits and bobs that allow a curious kid to come in and, you know, like all of a sudden run his RA, his radio and a microphone into one place and then have a single output and be able to like, you know, produce your own broadcast. I was very much that person as well. So I just, you know, talk a little bit about that. Talk about, you know, like your, that, that, you know, that hook in your mouth that kind of just came along. Yeah.

Tim Kerbavaz (17:31):

So, I mean, I think as you say, I mean, radio shack was this as much as it was, you know, sort of, and at the end, particularly kind of this seemed sort of corporate store it brought into almost community access to electronics and access to electronics, you know, when it started and, and its heyday at a time when there was not necessarily a lot of consumer access to technology to electronics, right. There were dedicated electronic stores where there was like an old dude behind the counter and you walked up and you're like, I wanna, whatever. And he layers at you as he finds it in the back, you know, the radio shack model that you could walk into a store and just Rumage through bins. And there was all sorts of, you know, cool computer and electronic and stereo gear on the shelves.

Tim Kerbavaz (18:23):

And, you know, and, and you, I mean, ham radios for that matter, right. The CB radios and, and, and having just access to that level of technology in the shopping mall, in, you know, the, the corner of the main street, you know was definitely, you know, a, a huge part of my childhood, like going to radio track was like an event, right. As a, you know, as a kid. And, you know, I mean, whether it was for, you know, some, a little resistor baggy for some project or whether it was just to kind of OAL at the, you know, the, the stereo systems, it was you know, kind of this window into the world of electronics in kind of local accessible way. And, and I, this is a, a west coast thing, but Fry's electronics is, is, is similar in the sort of big box store model.

Tim Kerbavaz (19:11):

Okay. Which unfortunately just went outta business. But you know, Fry's had that kind of, you could walk in and anything with electricity in, it was in this one store and that kind of sort of heyday of consumer electronics in some ways you know really, I think inspired me and I think other people in terms of, you know, being interested in and being able to kind of visualize what, you know, the world of electronics looked like, and for me, that, that went into kind of the world of production. And I could say, you know, and I always, whether it was at a science museum or at a theater or movie, or, or play, or, you know, at the amusement park, I was always peering around corners and up in the ceiling. And, you know, I still, I cannot go to a play without staring at the lights, you know, and, and it just, you know, that I've always been captivated by the machinations of production. And so, you know, it's certainly a, a tremendous privilege for me to be able to make my living doing something that I literally dreamt about as a, you know, 10 year old. Yeah. And so to say now, you know as an adult that I, I own a successful production company is, is definitely making, you know, 10 year old, 10 world proud.

Patrick Rife (20:33):

Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about Talon. You know, like, so it looks like it, you know, like it, it's clearly, it's been around for a long time and, and evolved to, to, to grow and become what it is. But, but, you know, tell us a little bit about, about its origin and now a word from our sponsors.

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Tim Kerbavaz (21:56):

Yeah, so I started Talon in a college bedroom, so my friend Aaron Cooper, and I were just like, you know, I don't know, geeking out about something. Aaron was a DJ at the time. And also like a music producer and then worked briefly for like the campus AV department doing like classroom maintenance, stuff like that as a, as a student. And then, you know, was just a, a huge music geek. He was just like, you know, tremendously interested in in music, particularly hip hop. And he and I were talking about kind of things we could do together. And I had like, just bought a set of like QSC K 10 speakers, you know, that was when, when those were new. And we were, you know, chatting and kind of decided to go in together to start like a DJ company.

Tim Kerbavaz (22:52):

And so, so talent, I mean, sort of embarrassed to say now, but started doing weddings. So Aaron and I, you know, did, did weddings, you know, for a couple years. And then basically Aaron had the probably very wise idea to go become a computer programmer instead of a DJ. And went off to work for a software company and I kept the company, but the name Talon is actually Tim and Aaron smashed together. That's how the, that's where the name came from. And we just thought Talon was, you know, the closest word and also sounded cool its closet of a bird. So I liked it. And then I kept Talon going. I was doing kind of small projects sort of community events in Davis. At the time I, I actually worked full time for UC Davis after I graduated from, from college.

Tim Kerbavaz (23:38):

I, I was the, I was running the event AV department or like AV service for the university. I worked there for like a decade. But I was keeping this business in, you know, as a sort of side hustle, like from college through, through, through this job. And I thought about change the name. Cause people like, always think it's like talent instead of talent. Like it, it gets confusing. So in a case I was consider the name and then Aaron died. He, he died a few years ago and, and so I felt like it was important for me to keep the name because it was his name. So what I did in, in in 2019 I quit my full-time job with the university with a pension and all that to take my business full time.

Tim Kerbavaz (24:27):

Evolved a lot in like Q4 of 2019 Q1 of 2020. Kind of just, you know, grew really fast, took on a bunch of new clients, bunch of new work and then got to, to March of 2020 and things really as everyone listened to this, we'll understand changed dramatically. But what happened in the summer of 2020 was while I was twiddling my thumbs, you know, sitting on the couch very enough in the space being like, what, what do I do now that I own an events business? I'm self-employed in the events world when there are no events. And it gave me a chance to really sit with my thoughts and because there was nothing to do, but think I really started musing about what does mean to be in events. What does, what the work that I do distill down to and what does it mean to do events in a time when there aren't events?

Tim Kerbavaz (25:27):

And you know, what are my skills and what are the things that I get joy from doing? And so coming into 2021, as things sort of thought out a bit as I had a bunch of new virtual event work, as I was sort of starting to get back into events and then into this year where we're, you know, a pretty broad mix of in person and, and online events I've really decided that I'm not uniquely good at, you know, warehousing and QC speakers. And so in, in 2020, I closed my warehouse because there just couldn't afford to keep it. And there was no sense in having that and actually downsized got rid of a lot of my gear, like, you know, just got fire sale or a lot of garbage. A lot of it just went into the dumpster. And so, you know, just had to get out like it was like, you know, <laugh> July 30th, close the warehouse.

Tim Kerbavaz (26:21):

So you know, getting rid of gear, downsizing, and then really evaluating what I want to be doing made me realize that I, you know, I'm not necessarily uniquely good or uniquely, you know there's no, no unique sort of business model in, in renting equipment, in the local regional market that I was in. But I had clients that I was doing big, you know, sort of national events for on a, you know, production level. And so really focusing on that work, focusing on building the accessibility work, which was something that really grew a ton in 20, 20, 20, 21, when people were going online and suddenly said, Hey, I need to figure out this captioning thing. And I was getting phone calls about that. And so, you know, one of the things I've really done for this year really is to admit to myself that I'm not, you know, an AV rental company anymore.

Tim Kerbavaz (27:23):

That's really not what I do, but that, you know, producing events and then helping clients, both end clients, production companies and agencies really understand the hybrid event model, you know, broadcast, overlays you know, kind of really the bridge between in person and online, and then particularly focusing on accessibility and localization, helping, you know, my production company, clients and friends really understand how to make captions work, how to make localization work was a really much better business model, frankly, for me than, you know, trying to have a warehouse full of gear that,

Patrick Rife (28:10):

Yeah, I mean, that resonates like, like, you know, like crazy. I mean, that's exactly what our, I mean, I just, I I'm still, you know, I I'm, I'm here amongst all of like all of that gear that we like ha have yet to, I mean, you know, on a shelf above me, I must have 40 Pelican cases that, you know, I gotta figure out how to sell somewhere at a fire, you know, but also who has the time to like, invest in that when what we wanna do is invest in moving forward. So like, I get that and, and, and even, you know, like recognizing your business model as, as, you know, not being unique and wanting to figure out what, you know, what you're uniquely good at and what aligns with where you want to go. Like that resonates a ton. You know, like I think I think it will be really interesting to see, and, and you're kind of like setting yourself up, you know, perfectly for the, for these following questions, but, you know, I feel like so much of the dialogue over the last two years has been, you know, like the events industry, like in light of COVID, you know, like what, how's it gonna change?

Patrick Rife (29:21):

What's going on? Yada, yada yada. My, my new question is, you know, like, like what is going on now that we are in post COVID? Because I think one of the things that a lot of people in our, a lot of our colleagues, a lot of our peers anticipated was that the warm back would be a much gentler arc than it ended up being. And that there would be time to not only move the development of the technology to lend itself to more hybrid experiences, but like the marketing language, like all of those things that you had to like your FAQs, like your landing pages and what messaging it was saying right off the jump, you know, like, I think we all expected it to be gradual. And instead, you know, like the, the CDC changed the guidelines and like, you know, like the train hit the emergency stop button, like paused for like 36 hours, and then they released the break and it was rolling in the opposite direction again, and everything was kind of thrown back into tumult.

Patrick Rife (30:25):

So you know Mike, I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. And, and the B to that question that I also want you to kind of speak to is just, there's so much technology that has been written in the last two years that now, I mean, like it's bloody, right? So like, there's gonna be a ton of, I anticipate a lot of M and a right. There's only so many people, right. We there's, there's a virtual event platform for every company in the world to have their own at this point. So like, clearly, like we're gonna start to see that, but, but what do you think, man, now that we are in this like, weird, like post COVID place what do you think is gonna change?

Tim Kerbavaz (31:06):

Yeah. As you say, I mean, they're kind of this roller coaster of up, up, down, up down, you know, and, you know, just like hitting that last, you know, slope and not really having everyone's plans in order. I mean, I, I, I totally hear that. And I see that as well with clients who are, you know, I think in many ways, the reason books are rushing back to, as we said earlier, kind of the way things were the way they did things in 2019 is because there's a formula, right. They have notes and reference and, you know, it's easy to replicate something you've done before. And, and so I think, you know, one of the challenges for a lot of clients, a lot of the books I'm working with are, you know, redefining the vision of what does an event mean? What does it, what, what is an event?

Tim Kerbavaz (31:57):

Why do we have events you know, who is our audience and, and what can we do for that audience for a specific events audience to maximize their benefits? You know, people go to events to learn something, to experience something, to meet people. And, and for all the reasons that people go to events, I think there's, you know, ways to make virtual and hybrid events work. But I think that you really have to think about what is it that your audience is coming to or event for and who is that audience, and then design the event around that. So it's, I think, you know, it's really tempting to have the cookie cutter, you know, we're gonna do this event in a box. And I think that, you know, that only works if, if the box you've picked your event out of is the box that works best for your audience.

Tim Kerbavaz (32:44):

A and so one of the things that I've been doing a lot of is this kind of just consulting and having conversations with clients about, like, what does it mean to have a, an agriculture conference for a global audience in, you know, 20, 22? Like what, what do you mean when you say you want to have a hybrid agriculture conference versus what do you mean when you say you wanna have a hybrid technology or, you know, you know, tech conference, right. So like, I, I've done a lot of events with, with Google, right. And, and their audience you know, they've had events in person in the bay area, right. A lot. But the reality is that they're targeting for these like developer events, what they call their NBU, the next billion users. And that next billion users is not in the Silicon valley in California.

Tim Kerbavaz (33:30):

There is not a single person in the Silicon valley in California who does not know what Google does or doesn't know their product suite already. Right. and so there's not really new business for them there. So the in-person event is really like a rah, right? It's like getting people all together to kind of celebrate the, the products and the, and the community, but the actual money to be made for Google is their audiences in Africa and India in China. And, and that's where they're going to actually find new developers who are actually gonna adopt these new products and tools. And, and that's how they grow. So for, for Google, the goal, the hybrid event is critical right to their business success. And frankly, they've been doing hybrid events for, you know, five, 10 years because I've been doing their developer events for at least five years, and they've all been live streamed to the world, you know, including China.

Tim Kerbavaz (34:28):

And so, you know, it's, it's, it's not really new for them to have a hybrid event with like online audience interaction. They've done like live Q and a with web and stuff like that. So it's funny to me when we talk about hybrid events as this sort of new thing. And obviously there are a lot of new tools and a lot of new products, but the basic underlying methodology is not new. So I told you, I worked for UC Davis running their event service, and, you know, academic conferences are, are often global conferences because you have researchers who are collaborating across continents, on research projects and presenting that research together. And obviously, hopefully right. O often they can travel together and, and present in person. But academic conferences have had what we used to call teleconferences, right. You know, teleconference presentations and, and participation and live streams, you know, for, for a decade or more because they've had a, a business need, right.

Tim Kerbavaz (35:31):

That, you know, the researcher in you know Paris or, or Beijing, couldn't travel to the conference in person for whatever reason. So they're gonna give their presentation remotely, you know, or I've done, you know, conferences about immigration where literally the immigration lawyers who are presenting couldn't get visas to come in. Right. You know, things like sort of the irony there, but, you know, lots of reasons that you know, folks are you know, have needed this model for years. And, and so I think it's, as we look at, you know, what does the model of a virtual Harvard event look like? For me, I see that pebble because I've been doing it for a long time, but I, I think for a lot of clients and, and particularly for event planners, who, as we discussed are stretched, thin are overwhelmed, are being asked to plan things faster and faster and faster with less and less warning and less and less availability of spaces and crew and all that that it's hard necessarily to visualize, right. What hypothetical models are when you're being asked to put together an event in three weeks. Right. So I, I think the challenge becomes kind of building these heuristics for the industry, so that folks, you know, when you get that phone call that, Hey, my biggest client wants to put on a hybrid event in a month. You know, that, you know, you actually have a, a box to pull it out of, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel while also trying to find a room block in 30 days. <Laugh>

Patrick Rife (37:01):

Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. Getting, getting, getting all the, the tools and processes in order. Right. So that way it's not starting over mm-hmm <affirmative> every single time. Yeah. Well, Tim, we are getting we're getting to the end of our time here. I love before we button up to, to ask some fun questions. Right, right. Quickly. So if you'll humor me through sure. So through these, so where is home based for you now?

Tim Kerbavaz (37:27):

I am in Sacramento, California.

Patrick Rife (37:29):

So if if one of our listeners is passing through Sacramento, California what's one thing that they should absolutely make sure that they make time for.

Tim Kerbavaz (37:40):

So it's super silly. And it's not necessarily even like the best restaurant. It's just like one of my favorite restaurants is a place called pancake circus. They're only open in the mornings. They're a pancake restaurant, they're like a diner. But they have like the weirdest decorations, which I love. They're like sort of creepy, not quite trademark infringing Winnie the Poo characters basically, but they're like, you know, just off enough that it's not trademarking. And I love it. And it's like, you know, sort of this, like, you know, grizzled, hostess seats, you, and, you know, slings coffee at you. And then you expect the waitress to pull a pencil out from behind her ear, but then she whips out an iPad. <Laugh> it just, this is really fun. I really like it, the the pankakes are also excellent, but you know, it it's, there is so much fine dining in Sacramento that I feel silly mentioning that, but it's that's one of my like, fun, fun Sacramento places if you're like coming through to Tahoe in the morning, stop for S pancakes.

Patrick Rife (38:34):

That's awesome. I love that. Okay. And, and fun question too. A recommendation, a book piece of music, you know, newspaper article, something that's been getting you stoked.

Tim Kerbavaz (38:48):

So and I feel bad cuz I don't remember the title of this book, but I was recently reading an ethnography and I will have to get it and send it to you for the, for the description. But it was this ethnography about sort of what's the right word, sort of boutique careers. I forgot how they described it, but it was like, it was about like basically barbers, bartenders, craft, distillers, and talking about these sort of traditionally sort of working class jobs that had sort of waned. Right. having a resurgence in urban environments becoming kind of arage of taste, right. Where you, you, you look to the craft bartender to really tell you what is hot in cocktails right now, where you go to your yeah.

Patrick Rife (39:41):

You know, like the record store employee,

Tim Kerbavaz (39:42):

Exactly. The record store. So that, that, there's these kind of, whether it's a record store employee, whether it's your, your barber, your bartender, your, you know, there's all these folks who are working these jobs that are not sort of glitzy tech jobs, but who, so many people in the, in a community look to as, as taste makers. Right. Yeah. And so just really thinking about that kind of ways that we code careers, but also the ways that we kind of code taste making is, is really, to

Patrick Rife (40:12):

Me. Yeah. That's cool. That's, you know, like it what you say makes me think of two things. It makes me think of I don't know if you've been to Italy before but in Italy being, you know, like being a waiter as a career, you know, like the waiters in the fanciest restaurants are, you know, like 50, 67 year old men that are, you know, it's like a whole thing, like it's, and they've done it, they've done it for decades and decades on end. And you know, like I think what you're talking about is like, they're like, these people are the secret keepers, right? Like they're keeping all of this information alive. And you know yeah. Whether it's somebody that can talk about like a, you know, like a, a, a extremely obscure scotch or it's somebody that can recommend the best like Stooges record or, or whatever the case may be, or, or if you like the Stooges, something even more obscure that you may not have known.

Patrick Rife (40:59):

And it makes me think about I dunno if you've ever read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 4 51. But you know, like it's all about like, just right, like organized destruction of knowledge to keep people in a place and, you know, like the book ends and, and there, like there's a community of outsiders on the edge of town and each one's responsible from, for remembering memorizing one entire book. So that way it's all there in documentation. And, you know, like not all things can be codified in ones and zeros. There, there is all that nuance that's there. So,

Tim Kerbavaz (41:31):

And I think to kind of take this a little, but I think, you know certainly not that I would ever call myself an arbiter of taste, but, but I do think that as event professionals, we are creating a space. Right. And one of the things that I, I really think about is as, as an event professional, we use, whether it's, you know, the tools of the internet or whether it's light and fabric and color and sound, and those tools of stagecraft, right. To create a space in almost all cases in ephemeral space, a space that goes away after we're done with it that is designed for storytelling, right. We are creating the campfire around which our clients tell their story. A and so, so much of our industry is about placemaking and about yes. Creating the environment to tell a story. And, and so, as we talk about, you know, what does it mean to you know, give recommendations? What does it mean to create, to create knowledge or memorize knowledge, you know, convey knowledge, you know, our job is not necessarily, it's not necessarily our story to be told. Right. But we are creating the environment in which the best stories can be told to our

Patrick Rife (42:46):

Audiences. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. What a great way to end Tim tell everybody that's listening let 'em know where to follow you, where to get in touch, you know, anything else that you want to share, please do.

Tim Kerbavaz (42:58):

My company is Talon Audio Visual, and that's T A L O N Audio Visual Dot Com. You can find me on Twitter @tkerbavaz that's (at) T K E R B as in baker, A, V as in Victor, A, Z as in zebra. That's my last name. You can also check out my podcast, which is Tim and Tim Talk with my colleague, Tim kay from another company in the bay area. And we talk about event technology and the ways that you know, kind of virtual and hybrid events are evolving. And we also give some case studies. And so our episodes that are just about to come out are literally like a four part case study of a big tech conference that we produced in a virtual world couple years ago. And I guess last year and you know, so that's Tim and Tim, sorry, Tim and Tim talk. You can find us at timandtimtalk.com.

Patrick Rife (43:51):

Love it. Awesome. Well, Tim on behalf of all of our listeners out there, I just want to thank you so much for taking time outta your today. Sharing your story, giving such thoughtful answers to our questions. I know that everyone listening is going to just get a ton out of it. So hopefully you will you will hear the responses, hit your inbox. Amazing.

Tim Kerbavaz (44:12):

Amazing. Yeah. Love, thank you so much for having me. It's great. Great conversation. And I look forward to continuing this conversation with you and with your listeners offline.

Patrick Rife (44:20):

Yeah, absolutely. All right, guys. So that's it. That brings us to another final episode of the pixelated podcast. Hope you all enjoyed our chat with Tim again. All of the things that we talked about, we will link up to in the show notes. So whether you are watching this video on YouTube or, or Facebook, or if you are subscribing through your favorite podcast player hit the show notes, find some links, get in touch with Tim. I would also implore you to please, if you enjoyed this podcast take a few moments, leave us a five star review, your reviews, help other people find our podcast. And our goal is to spread this information far and wide. So we'll really appreciate that. And last but not least, if you haven't yet hit the subscribe button, make sure you do so that ensures that you're notified each time we publish a new episode. So without further ado until next time I and Patrick with Pixilated - Peace guys!

2021 - Year In Review

Wow. What a year. 2021 was quite journey, and I'm so thankful for the production partners, freelancers, and vendors who worked tirelessly this year to get productions off the ground.

And I am especially thankful to the clients who came to my little corner of the production world and shared my vision of what virtual and hybrid events could be.

Giving Thanks with a Picnic: Project Recap - UC Davis Gratitude Gala & "Powering Up"​ Film

This last year, my clients at UC Davis came to me with a challenge - reimagine their 2021 Leadership Giving Society Donor Gratitude Gala as a COVID-Safe Event. They had plenty of ideas - a drive-in-movie and a dinner in the round were some ideas floated. The uncertainty of COVID restrictions, need to ensure attendee safety, and a strong desire to return to a fully-in-person event made for a unique set of circumstances, and led this project to a different kind of “hybrid” production.

With the need to keep the event outdoors to meet COVID safety requirements, the event was re-imagined as an outdoor sunset picnic. An army of production vendors transformed an athletic field into a “park” - cocktail tables for two were pre-set with a light picnic basket meal, an open-air bar served beverages, guests mingled amongst a showcase of exhibits showcasing highlights from across campus, and cabanas provided secluded spaces to share a moment with your “pod” while enjoying the live music from the stage. A short spoken program punctuated the joyous reunion with a message of gratitude from senior leadership.

Talon AV provided technical production for the event including audio reinforcement for the music and the spoken program, as well as all power distribution for the stage and exhibition area.

Event Design by Samie Novan, Lonnie Muntz, Korie Gannon, and Jesse De La Trinidad, with rentals from Celebrations and Designer8. Catering from Barn & Pantry, Floral and decor from Dixon Florist & Gift Shop.

Here is a brief Behind-The-Scenes recap of the event:

Keeping the event short was an important consideration, both for safety reasons and the weather - an event in late October provides an uncertain climate for an outdoor function. A key part of this event is showcasing for donors what areas of campus have been most impacted by philanthropy, so cutting the spoken program short meant that this messaging needed another avenue. Talon stepped up here to produce a short film showcasing the ways campus was “Powering Up” for the new in-person school year, in large part thanks to the support of philanthropy.

As a companion to the in-person event, the film served to supplement the shortened spoken programs by bringing the message of gratitude directly to the donors inboxes post event. The video also allows that message to live on past the event, and become an “evergreen” message of gratitude that can be shared beyond the exclusive invite list of the event.

I hope you enjoy “UC Davis: Powering Up”

Production Showcase: Virtual Donor Luncheon

Talon Audio Visual has been whipping up virtual events like crazy, including a recent project that included a cooking show! Here's a recording from a virtual event we produced for University of California, Davis for a special group of key donors. This combined pre-produced video segments with a live Q&A via Zoom webinar.

This is a very cost-effective way to produce virtual events using tools clients already have at their disposal, but provide a little more 'TV Magic' to Spice it Up. Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Are Virtual Events Boring?

Are virtual events inherently boring? Here are some thoughts.

Virtual and Hybrid Events Recap

Have you wondered what we've been up to for the past 18+ Months? Making Virtual + Hybrid Events! Here's a sampling of some of Talon Audio Visual's Virtual and Hybrid Event Work.

Podcasts about Accessibility

I recently had the opportunity to speak on two different podcasts about a subject I’m very passionate about - Event Accessibility. The conversations are a bit different -

On the first, with Alana Mediavilla of FilmKik, I speak more generally about the role and importance of accessibility, and the ways video producers can ensure their content is accessible to all

On the second, Ben Powell of BetterCast and I get into the nitty gritty of different caption systems and how they work. Fair warning, this one is long and has a lot of tech detail.

Remote Production is here to stay

As I'm working on #hybridevents I'm seeing reminders in the real world that remote production is here to stay.

What are the ways you see tools and techniques from remote / REMI becoming mainstays of in-person event production?

Production Recap: UC Davis Alumni Awards

Here is a little peak #behindthescenes from a virtual awards show that Talon Entertainment Audio Visual produced for the University of California, Davis Cal Aggie Alumni Association. We built a studio in a ballroom at the Alumni Center and streamed the MC's live as they introduced remote award recipients.

This event was a lot of fun to produce.

Thanks to all the crew for their hard work to make this a great event.

Production Recap: Hybrid Outdoor Graduation

As in-person and hybrid events return, here’s a little recap of an event Talon produced for the Davis Joint Unified School District.

Look Both Ways Before You Step Out: Looking Back at Virtual 2020 as we head into Hybrid 2021

The end of the first quarter of 2021 marks a full year of the events industry in a Covid world.  I think this is a good time to look back at the year past, and to look forward to my view of what's next for our industry.

I previously wrote about virtual events early in the pandemic - in March, and in April, Twice.

Take a look back and see how many of my predictions came true and how many rang hollow.

In the meantime, I’ve spent the last year producing virtual events - ranging from 1 hour webinars to 5-day flagship conferences - and my calendar is rapidly filling for the rest of 2021 with virtual and hybrid events. I know everyone in the event industry is itching to get back to “normal” - I am also excited to be in a ballroom again, but I don’t think we’re quite going to just jump back into where we left off when the industry froze in Q1 2020, and I don’t think we should want to.

Businesses large and small, and their target audiences, have discovered the power of virtual events - events without travel and catering budgets, events that span the globe, with presenters and attendees that would never have been able to come in person. Virtual productions provide increased accessibility of events to parents who can’t leave their kids at home, increased accessibility of events to people with disabilities that make attending face-to-face events difficult, and provide increased accessibility of events to independent professionals, small business owners, and students who may not have the time or resources to travel to an in-person event. Bigger events with broader audiences, or multiple smaller events for hyper targeted audiences, whichever makes more sense. Instantly evergreen content you can re-share, re-edit, and combine with other content to re-sell. With tremendous ROI of virtual, why would we want it to stop?

Enter Hybrid. I know that “hybrid events” is a buzzword of the moment, but really it’s not a new concept. Our industry has been producing hybrid events for years, we just didn’t describe them that way.

I’ve streamed millions of viewer-hours of live event video from in-person events. I remember first producing events that brought in individual speakers via teleconference almost a decade ago. TV news bridges an in-person studio with remote presenters 7 nights a week. The idea of serving both an in-person and remote audience simultaneously is really not unusual, but in the events world prior to 2020 it hadn’t been the default. The tools and techniques have existed for a while - what I think will change is the expectation and “normalcy” of virtual components in almost any event

A woman in a floral top and a man in a blue shirt smile in a screenshot of a Zoom call. The zoom interface is visible. Photo by visuals on Unsplash

Just like every event for the past several years has needed to be ready to play audio and video someone’s slide presentation, even if it’s not in the “spec”, I think every event going forward needs to be ready to add a presenter via Zoom or Teams or Meet. I think teleconference in and stream out is a default assumption for any in-person event going forward. Any event from a flagship conference to a PTA meeting will need the ability to add a call-in option at the last minute, with no fuss.

Another change I expect to stick is the shifted and elongated event cycle. As we think about the event ecosystem, and as event dates have been shaken up due to COVID, something has shifted - events are now year-round. We have less defined “event seasons” with bookend or flagship events, and more ongoing events as part of broader outreach and marketing efforts.

There is less waiting for the big tradeshow to announce products, and more year round marketing drip. Even one-off events are part of a broader marketing ecosystem, and clients need all events to align with their broader communication goals, online or off.

As in-person events return, and as clients evaluate their goals and event needs, I expect to see more roadshows, smaller regional events, and overlapping regional events that are connected via video technology to bridge in-person speakers and audiences across multiple venues and locations.

Woman in a green dress uses a VR Headset in an art gallery. Photo by Sophia Sider on Unsplash

As high profile clients focus on adding pizzaz to their events, we move into an area where hybrid gets interesting and we get beyond the basic stream or Zoom call. Under the hybrid-event umbrella, there are some newer technologies and techniques that have really gained traction over the past year. I expect to see more events using consumer-facing VR and AR technology and studio side xR tech, 3D virtual sets, and volumetric stages along with Unreal Engine, disguise, and other media server environments to make the experience for the online audience more immersive than your average zoom call.

Another tech innovation I expect to see more of is the Pepper's Ghost “hologram” on stage. It was used to much fanfare to “resurrect” beloved performers at music festivals over the last few years, and I expect it to be used to “beam” CEOs and keynote speakers into multi-site conferences to allow “embodied” presentations to remote audiences when executives can’t travel or events overlap.

There are many more technologies, techniques, and event formats on the horizon. As you plan online, in-person and hybrid events, think about the specific takeaway you want the audience to have before you pick a format or technology. Keep in mind audiences you might have missed in the past, and how you can bring your event and message to a more diverse audience who might experience your event differently than other attendees. Consider ways to make your event more accessible to people with a variety of different personal, ability, and travel needs. Think about the experience you want each person in your audience to have and define the goals for takeaway and experience first, then pick the platform, format, or venue that best fits those needs. For some events an online-first approach may still offer the best ROI.  Where in-person components fit the bill, remember that there are a myriad of options to bridge an in-person and online experience to maximize impact.

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Tim Kerbavaz is the Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual.

Talon AV provides virtual and in-person event production services for private, corporate, and community events across the United States. Serving a wide range of events, from political round-tables, to Silicon Valley Tech Company Conferences, to community festivals, to automotive-industry board meetings, Talon Entertainment Audio Visual provides technical expertise and an exemplary attendee experience.

The AV IT Convergence and Live Event IT

My friend Tim Kay and I were on the AV Nation Podcast “The IT Factor” this week, discussing the confluence of AV and IT with regard to live events.

IT Factor 49: Putting The IT In Live Event

AVNATION PODCAST - Speakers: Frank Padikkala, Tim Kay, Tim Kerbavaz

Episode 49 of the AV Nation podcast IT Factor, featuring Tim Kerbavaz and Tim Kay

Talon Tech Tip: The Basics of a Public Address System

NOTE: Much of my writing published here has taken a broad look at the industry and with a fairly philosophical tone. Other posts have been super geeky and designed for industry technical peers. This one is a very basic intro to an AV topic. If you have much experience in the technical side of production, you probably already know this, but if you’re less confident in your understanding of audio technology, or are just getting started in the events industry, you might check it out. I break down the very basic building blocks of a Public Address system. If it’s not your jam, feel free to gloss over. Even if this isn’t your cup of tea, I hope you’ll come back to see my future writings - I’ll be jumping between tech-heavy and more general postings.

The Basics of a Public Address System

I recently received a message from a long-time client asking for help understanding how to amplify voices at a socially-distanced, outdoor event. They knew they because their very small audience was all separated from each other and from the presenters that they needed microphones for their event, but were unsure how all the pieces worked together. This article came out of offering one client some basic help understanding how the pieces of an event sound system (often called a “Public Address” or “PA” system) fit together.

In general the basic components of a public address system are the microphone(s), the mixer, the amplifier, and the speakers. Sometimes one or more of these components are combined in all-in-one units.

Microphones

In terms of microphones, a very common live sound microphone (in fact probably the most popular / famous mic in the world) is the Shure SM58. A microphone is a transducer that takes the physical sounds of your voice (or a musical instrument) and turns it into electrical energy, which is carried over a wire to the rest of the system.

Wireless microphones have two more parts - the transmitter, and the receiver. The transmitter has the microphone element attached to it, and that picks up the sound from the person speaking, and the transmitter converts the electrical energy from the mic element into radio waves. The receiver turns those radio waves back into an electrical signal that connects to your mixer. You can think of a wireless microphone transmitter as a tiny radio station, to which the receiver is “listening.”

Wireless microphone transmitters typically come in either a Hand-Held form factor, which can be held or placed into a stand, or a “Body Pack” form factor that is designed to be clipped to the belt and used with a lapel microphone or a headset microphone.

Because wireless microphones use radio frequency to transmit sound, they offer different "channels" which adjust the frequency each mic is using. The transmitter and the receiver need to be on the same channel to work, just like you have to have your car radio on the correct frequency to hear your favorite FM station. If another microphone, or a local TV station, or a walkie talkie, or any other device uses an overlapping frequency, the mic will get radio interference, causing dropouts or unpleasant noises. There is a whole science to frequency coordination, but a great start is to use the “scan frequencies” function on your microphone system to find available channels in your area.

Many new wireless microphones use digital encoding to provide high-quality audio over minimal radio bandwidth, but the basic principles above still apply.

Mixers

The next component of the sound system is the mixer. Mixers take multiple audio signals and “mix” them together, allowing the operator to change the relative volumes of the inputs and adjust aspects of the sound from each one.

Mixers can come with as few as 2 up to 70+ inputs, and come in various feature sets. To use 4 microphones with one PA you would need a mixer with 4 microphone inputs, and to mix an arena rock concert, you probably need a much bigger mixer.

Small, low channel-count mixers are usually analog devices that manipulate the sound with physical electronic components. Larger, higher-channel count mixers are often digital, encoding the audio into a digital signal and using digital signal processing to manipulate and mix the signals. This approach gives a great deal of control over the audio when working with complex systems.

Amplifier and Speakers

The mixer connects to the amplifier, which raises the amplitude of the audio signal high enough to physically move the speaker drivers, and then to the speakers, which are transducers that physically reproduce the electrical signals as sound waves.

Some mixers have built in amps (amplified or “powered” mixers) and some speakers have built in amplifiers (“active” or “powered” speakers). Depending on the configuration, you may be able to connect your mixer directly to your speakers, because the amplifier is built into one or the other.

NOTE: You should not cannot connect the output of an amplifier or amplified mixer to the input of a powered or active speaker - make sure you are connecting the appropriate kind of equipment.

There are also many all-in-one PA systems, some with batteries, that have built in wireless mics, mixers, and amplifiers. These are super useful for small events and events in unique or challenging locations that may not have available electrical power. Note that most will only work with a limited number of inputs and may have somewhat limited output power due to the limitations of the battery.

Connecting it All Together

Once you have all the components, you can connect them together. You will use several different kinds of cables to connect your system together. Make sure components are all connected while they are powered off, and then when you power them on, turn them on in the direction of signal flow. That is, Sources, then Mixer, then Amps. When powering down, turn off the power in the opposite order - Amps, then Mixer, then Sources. This helps avoid unwanted pops and noises that can occur during power up and down.

For most events, your AV provider will be using a fairly complex sound and video system, with multiple types of speakers, electronic mixing and routing controls and several trained operators, but even the biggest audio rigs for arena rock tours are combinations of these basic parts.

So now you have the basics of a PA system.

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Tim Kerbavaz (he/him) is the founder and Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual as well as a freelance Technical Producer with over a decade in corporate event production after an early career in live music production management. As both a live event technology professional and a creative geek, Tim serves as an event technology sherpa, guiding clients through production and technology decision making and delivering events to production bliss.

Talon Tech Tip: Video Captions

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Tim from Talon Audio Visual, and I wanted to give a super brief overview about video captioning.

The basic, basic definition here, there's closed captions and there's open captions.

Closed captions are off by default and the viewer can turn them on and off.

They are metadata that goes along with a video stream that's rendered in the video player, or on the viewer's television.

They're called closed captions because they start closed, off, and the viewer can open them by turning them on.

Open captions are part of the video signal, they're actually basically imprinted in the video on screen, they're not user controllable and they're always visible.

That's really, really super brief definitions, closed versus open. And an easy way to make your events and videos more accessible is to include captions for everything you do. Thanks for watching.

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Tim Kerbavaz (he/him) is the founder and Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual as well as a freelance Technical Producer with over a decade in corporate event production after an early career in live music production management. As both a live event technology professional and a creative geek, Tim serves as an event technology sherpa, guiding clients through production and technology decision making and delivering events to production bliss.

Case Study: Closed Captioning with Redundant Stream Paths

NOTE: Much of my writing published here has taken a broad look at the industry and with a fairly philosophical tone. This post is going to be super geeky - it’s about specific technical systems for live stream video captioning. If it’s not your jam, feel free to gloss over - but you might like the photo at the end. Even if this isn’t your cup of tea, I hope you’ll come back to see my future writings - I’ll be jumping between tech-heavy and more general postings.

In late October, I was working with a long-time client on the latest virtual iteration of their recurring live developer conference series. This is a major tech company that has a strong commitment to web, product, and event accessibility. I’ve been involved in event and video accessibility for almost a decade. Having a client who shares this commitment makes this client a pleasure to work with. I’ve been designing live closed caption workflows for this client for about 5 years. The scope and systems have evolved over time, but their commitment to accessibility overall and captioning specifically is admirable.

For this event broadcast, we were airing a mix of live and pre-recorded content, which was all being captioned live by a human stenographer. When designing the streaming and captioning workflow, we had two key criteria - one, we needed to have redundant internet signal paths from the studio all the way to YouTube, and two, we needed to have the ability to ingest live closed caption data as CEA 608 or CEA 708 metadata.

Brief definition time - “Closed Captions” are so-called because they are off (closed) by default and the viewer can choose to turn them on. They are metadata that is rendered by the player or viewer’s television. “Open Captions” are an always-on part of the video itself and are not user controllable.

For this event, the requirement was Closed Captions - open captions were only a fallback.
With YouTube in particular there are two ways to ingest live captions - Broadcast Standard CEA608/CEA708 caption metadata in the stream, or YouTube’s caption embedding API.
Based on prior experience, YouTube’s built-in caption embed API has proven unreliable with inconsistent display timing, so based on that experience we chose to use CEA 608 captions.

Regarding the redundant signal paths, YouTube, like many other streaming services and CDNs offers the option for a Primary and Backup RTMP ingest URL. We wanted to be sure that we fed the Primary ingest URL via hardline fiber internet for robust connection, and then that we fed the backup ingest URL from a separate encoder on a Cellular LTE connection. This way if the network went out, we could continue streaming and YouTube would auto-negotiate the failover.

To embed the CEA 608 Closed Captions on the live stream while maintaining signal and ISP redundancy, I engineered a stream and caption signal path that used two instances of EEG’s cloud-based caption encoder, Falcon. This system ingests caption data via EEG’s iCap protocol, and combines an incoming RTMP stream with the caption data and then pushes it on to the RTMP destinations of choice.

See the signal flow drawing below for more visibility into how we made that possible.

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Signal Flow diagram for redundant signal path streaming system using two EEG Falcon Caption encoders.

And a bonus photo of my home studio/WFH setup for this event

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A Behind-The-Scenes photo of my office/studio setup, annotated with descriptions of what each item/screen is for.

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Tim Kerbavaz (he/him) is the founder and Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual as well as a freelance Technical Producer with over a decade in corporate event production after an early career in live music production management. As both a live event technology professional and a creative geek, Tim serves as an event technology sherpa, guiding clients through production and technology decision making and delivering events to production bliss.

Advice for Independent AV Technicians - Sound Design Live Interview

I was recently a guest on the Nathan Lively’s podcast Sound Design Live discussing ways that independent AV technicians can adapt in the face of Covid-19. It’s designed for AV industry professionals, but it’s got some general advice that might be useful to other folks in the event space. This video also has some background on me, which clients may find interesting.

Improving Virtual Meeting Attendee Engagement with an Interactive Coffee Break

Let’s take this online

In mid May, the staff at Veloz, a nonprofit organization focused on electrifying transportation in California, came to me with a challenge. Their July member meeting, scheduled to be an in-person round table in Downtown Los Angeles, was going to be impacted by COVID-19 travel restrictions. Like most event planners, they wondered how to take the meeting online. The conference involved 50 members around a table discussing state policy, industry marketing, and increasing member investment. How would we move it to an online format while maintaining the networking, conversation and attendee engagement of the in-person meeting? How could we make members feel valued and invested in the organization without being with them in person?

Author and Technical Director Tim Kerbavaz takes a selfie during a session break while managing the webinar from the client’s office.

They were familiar with Zoom, and already had a Webinar license, but weren’t sure how to ensure good audio and video quality as their Executive Director hosted the meeting. They also wanted to provide an extra level of engagement for their members as they participated in the meeting.

In order to ensure that all the member organizations were able to participate in the discussions, each member was asked to designate one delegate to have a seat at the virtual Zoom Webinar table. These appointed delegates were invited to the webinar as panelists, so that they could participate in the round-table discussion. Any other member representatives, or attendees from non-member organizations, were enrolled as listen-only attendees to streamline the conversation in the meeting.

In addition to pre-production planning, Talon provided onsite AV support at the Veloz office. We turned a conference room into a studio with camera, lighting, and audio equipment, allowing the Director to host the meeting on camera with high-quality video. Talon staff remotely controlled the production from down the hall in an office suite to preserve social distance and prevent noise or distraction on camera.

Make your guests feel at home, at home

Custom Camping-Style Coffee Mugs were sent out along with freshly roasted coffee beans from a local roaster.

To ensure members felt valued, and to ensure they were alert and attentive for the meeting, each member delegate was sent a Veloz-branded coffee mug and a bag of locally-roasted coffee. We partnered with Sacramento, CA -based Seasons Coffee Roasters. Seasons offers a retail mail-order coffee service, as well as wholesale beans for retail and foodservice, so they were a natural fit to enlist for both coffee and fulfilment of the gift packages. Boxes were shipped to arrive at attendees homes the weekend before the event, to allow plenty of time to enjoy the coffee and be ready for the meeting.

What’s that sound?

Screenshot from the webinar of DJ Jon VonRonk spinning records for the conference audience.

To set the tone of the meeting, attendees were greeted by Sacramento local vinyl DJ Jon VonRonk from Kicksville Vinyl & Vintage spinning records on the webinar, joining us live from his home studio. Because the audio from the DJ’s studio was music, not speech, Zoom’s standard audio processing would have interfered with the quality of playback. To prevent this, we adjusted some key audio settings within Zoom to disable the noise and echo cancellation processing, ensuring the highest possible music fidelity in the webinar environment. While the music played, attendees were presented with some light-hearted polling questions designed to spark conversations and encourage creative thinking before the discussions began in earnest.

Feel-Good Impact

Many members made a point to have their coffee mug in the frame for the call, even a few who admitted it was filled with water because they preferred tea or cocoa to coffee. Throughout the conference, and in a subsequent meeting of the same group, members exclaimed how exciting it was to have a DJ open and close the meeting. “I’ve never been to a webinar with a live DJ before” said several attendees. Some guests lamented that they don’t have music to greet them at all their conferences.

Overall guests responded with great excitement to the “virtual coffee break” and it provided a great example of combining creative attendee engagement tools to keep virtual event attendees interested and connected to the meeting and message.

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Tim Kerbavaz (he/him) is the founder and Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual as well as a freelance Technical Producer with over a decade in corporate event production after an early career in live music production management. As both a live event technology professional and a creative geek, Tim serves as an event technology sherpa, guiding clients through production and technology decision making and delivering events to production bliss.

A Music Festival, in this Pandemic?! How Mutek.SF shook up the virtual event scene

Conceptual Signal Flow Drawing for Mutek Nexus 2020

Mutek is an internationally renowned electronic music and digital arts organization that hosts annual festivals in cities globally. The relatively new Mutek San Francisco chapter was faced with a challenge for their 3rd annual festival in May 2020: In the face of Covid-19 should they cancel, or find a way to translate an engaging, creative community festival to a virtual event?

Mutek San Francisco hosted Nexus, their 2020 online music festival, using a bespoke virtual community event platform custom built by Currents.fm for the event. Nexus combined live video streams, video-on-demand, a gallery of online Open GL artwork, live workshops on a variety of creative topics, and community-submitted art, music, and live video streams from the SF Bay Area and all over the world.

Making the event community-focused and highlighting community contributions was key to the experience. In addition to the curated musical performances, live DJ sets, and film screenings, the festival highlighted live trainings and performances from both Bay-Area and global artists, as well as links to other concurrent festivals. The live audience interacted with each other and the artists via text and video chat built into the interface alongside the artwork and performances.

The Currents.FM Live Event Interface

In addition to the task of building a custom audience-facing platform, this event posed multiple content-delivery challenges. With multiple live “rooms” running simultaneously with a mix of live and pre-recorded content from many different locations, there were many sources of content going to several different destinations. There were questions of streaming infrastructure, of video endpoints at both the artist (contributor) and audience delivery endpoints of the signal flow, as well as questions of routing in between. This project required both technology solutions and the team to develop and implement them.

Mutek SF Technical Director John Mitchell brought in streaming engineers Drew Patterson of Fresh AV and myself, Tim Kerbavaz of Talon AV to provide live streaming and virtual event management expertise. Drew provided early-process technical management, and Jessie McDaniel, also of Fresh AV, provided show-day artist and stage management, coordinating live remote performances and asset collection.

As a team, we implemented a mix of technologies to make 4 concurrent live rooms possible. Two of the rooms were a mix of live content from artists’ homes and playout of pre recorded performances submitted in advance. Another room was a film screening room playing a timed schedule of films, and the fourth was a workshop room with live presentations by contributing artists.

Leveraging our live event and online video expertise, Drew and I spun up playback systems in redundant locations, with playback locations in both Texas and California, as well as cloud-based playback and routing.

We used LTN Live Video Cloud, which is a cloud-based video routing system to manage, route, and record live contributions. For timed playback of pre-recorded content, we used LTN/Make.TV Playout, a cloud-based broadcast playout application, and Figure53 QLab, a desktop cue-based playback system for Mac OS. Endpoint destination streams went to Vimeo Live, Twitch, Facebook, and Youtube. 

Author Tim Kerbavaz in the Sacramento Control Room for the Mutek Nexus Festival

These infrastructure choices proved to be essential to the success of the event. QLab’s Wall-Clock triggers and time-based loop cues in LTN Playout made scheduling playback based on time of day an easy feat, and the cloud routing and playback solutions from LTN enabled remote performers from all over the world to each have their own RTMP or WebRTC ingest credentials and for a team of technicians and production staff spread across two states and 3 metro areas to collaboratively manage the same production.

This was a great opportunity to try some new tools and be a part of a one-of-a-kind live music experience. The event pushed the envelope of online events, creating a new model of what a virtual event can look like and letting us stretch to the cutting edge of both video streaming and event platform technology. I look forward to applying these skills and technologies to future projects.

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Tim Kerbavaz is the Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual. 

Talon Entertainment Audio Visual provides event AV production services for private, corporate, and community events across the United States. Serving a wide range of events, from political round-tables, to Silicon Valley Tech Company Conferences, to community festivals, to automotive-industry board meetings, Talon AV provides expertise and an exemplary attendee experience.

Not Quite Live Stream: A Virtual Event Video Playback Solution

Signal Flow Diagram of a typical virtual event playback solution

I got a call this week from a client asking “How do we do an event that looks like a live stream, but is actually pre-recorded?”

Lots of the virtual events I’ve been working on have had pre-recorded sessions, if not been fully pre recorded, so I thought I’d share how I’ve been handling playback for Zoom calls or Live Streams. For my higher profile events I use an ATEM Mini as an A/B switch for my redundant playback machines as well as for USB capture, but you could easily use a single playback machine and a capture card like a Magewell, a U-Tap or an UltraStudio to ingest the HDMI input into your streaming computer, and/or go directly into an encoder like a Teradek Cube to go live to stream.

Using Figure53 qLab for playback, I set “wall clock” triggers to play certain files at certain times based on the time-of-day, and then once it’s set, it’s easy to manage multiple breakout rooms at once with minimal manual input.

Reach out if you need help putting together a live event broadcast system (or if you’d like Talon to turnkey your production). Happy to provide a consult, additional assistance, or a full-service production.

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Tim Kerbavaz is the Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual. 

Talon Entertainment Audio Visual provides event AV production services for private, corporate, and community events across the United States. Serving a wide range of events, from political round-tables, to Silicon Valley Tech Company Conferences, to community festivals, to automotive-industry board meetings, Talon AV provides expertise and an exemplary attendee experience.