The Train Walkers Share Live Streaming Tips, From Start to Finish
Live streaming has become the new normal.
Thanks to technology, musicians can still connect with a live audience and this virtual direct-to-fan approach has never been more popular. I’ve been tuning in to live streams by indie musicians every day. After an average of 3-5 daily sessions for 40 days, I find myself returning again and again to some of these shows. So I reached out to these artists and asked for tips on how musicians can run similarly engaging live streams.
From the short and sweet to the super in-depth, I’ve compiled their responses into two blog posts, each is filled with invaluable recommendations to help you create your own extraordinary live stream experience.
Photo source: The Train Walkers
The Train Walkers – a group of New York City subway performers – have moved their shows away from the subway trains and into their homes to comply with the current stay-at-home order. After weeks of daily streaming, they’ve made quite a few improvements of their process and have lots to share from pre-show setup, at-show engagement, to post-show sharing. Read on!
Pre-Show
“We prep ahead of time by setting up our stage, which is our living room. When we first started doing this we would write our information along with the current date on a dry erase board. However, we just recently stepped up our production and set up our projector to display our daily powerpoint slides as they play right behind us while we perform!”
They use Google Chromecast to set up their TV as a monitor to display guitar tabs and other information they’ll be sharing with viewers during the show. Once the “stage” is set, they use iPads and smartphones to live stream on multiple platforms. Their favorite platforms so far are Instagram and Live.Me but they continue to experiment.
Offstage Tunes X The Train Walkers
At-Show
Having moving images in the backdrop is not only a nice touch, but it has also expanded their streaming capabilities. “Since we're using our projector to show our slideshow, we also utilize it to video call our friends on Facebook, which would be displayed to our livestream viewers. We've experimented with different ways to live stream and chat and this seems to be working out for us visually and it sounds great as well.”
Besides a killer presentation that grabs attention, engagement with the audience is also extremely important. “Once we're live streaming we engage with everyone tuning in by reading the comments in between our songs.” I’ve also seen them create dialogues by asking questions or even calling out somebody they know that’s currently viewing and introducing them to the rest of the audience.
The more you can create a personal and interactive experience, the more likely your audience will want to stay with your live stream. But if this seems too stressful at first, a simple “hello” is always a good place to start.
Post-Show
Finally, what to do after you’ve waved goodbye to your live audience? “Once we finish our livestream we go ahead and screen record our livestream, which we edit and upload to our YouTube page.” This is a great way to build an archive of live performance videos. Even if you don’t share those videos publicly, using them to evaluate your own playing is one of the best ways musicians can improve their performance skills. (I didn’t ask them but I’m sure The Train Walkers have made adjustments partly by re-watching their own live stream videos. From mirrored/backwards text on a board on their first day of streaming, to their now semi-professional setup with separate microphones for each performer, these incremental improvements show how much The Train Walkers care about the virtual concert experience they create for their audience.)
“Doing all this has been a lot of fun and we've gotten creative,” said The Train Walkers. I can’t wait to tune in to their next show.
Interview conducted and written by Louise Lau. Connect on social @offstagetunes