Guide27 August 2026
Can your AV supplier do the stream, or do you need a specialist?
Most AV companies will say yes when you ask if they can stream it. Many of them genuinely can. The question is whether streaming is a line on their quote or a thing they do properly, and there are some reliable ways to tell.
Daniel Wilkinson
Founder and Operations Director, dwmedia
This is not an argument for always hiring a specialist. Plenty of events are well served by a single supplier handling everything, and fewer companies on site is genuinely simpler.
Questions that reveal the answer
Who is cutting the cameras, and is that their only job?
If the person operating the vision mixer is also managing the presentations and the room screens, the stream is going to be a locked-off wide for most of the day.
What is the encoder?
A dedicated hardware encoder is a different level of reliability to a laptop running software alongside everything else. Neither answer is disqualifying, but the answer tells you where streaming sits in their thinking.
What happens to the audio?
The stream needs its own mix. A feed of the room PA sounds wrong online, because the room mix is compensating for the acoustics of a room the viewer is not in.
What is the connectivity plan?
If the answer is the venue’s WiFi, that is your answer. A proper plan involves a tested dedicated line where one exists, plus bonded cellular and satellite as failover that arrive on the vehicle regardless.
Who is watching the stream?
Somebody should be looking at the output the viewer sees, on a separate connection, for the whole event. If nobody is, then the first person to notice a problem will be a member of your audience.
The honest position
We work both ways. Sometimes we are the whole production. Often we come in alongside an AV company or an agency who is handling the room, and we take the cameras, the cut and the transmission while they take the staging and the audio.
That second arrangement works well and we are set up for it. We are a technical partner rather than a competitor to the agency who owns the client relationship.
More on working with agencies and twelve questions to ask any live production company.
Written by
Daniel Wilkinson
Founder and Operations Director, dwmedia
Dan has run live production since 2014, from single-camera council committee streams to sixty-date arena tours. He has worked in 18 UK arenas including The O2, the AO Arena and the OVO Hydro, and covers 16 or more festivals and 30 or more arena dates a year. He writes these from the job rather than from a desk.