FREE Guidebook
We’ve put together a guide to help you put on the best experience possible.
Topics include:
Building a great profile
Work with a curator or book your own show
Get your tech set up
Prepare and test your audio quality
Prepare best practices for running the show
Of course, Side Door also offers our “Broadcast” lane, which is a more traditional livestream experience (stream player embedded securely on the show page alongside chat, tipping, etc.)
For Broadcast shows, you’d use an encoder (either software like OBS or hardware like Blackmagic ATEM Mini) to send your stream to our server using an RTMPS streaming url and streaming key. As this is the more prevalent and incumbent technology, there are already ample resources online. Here are a few:
Here's a short preview of the guide
Zoom - have you enabled Original Sound?
Have you run an online sound-check with a peer or professional engineer?
Have you hard-wired your internet?
Have you arranged a co-host to help moderate your show?
Zoom - have you disabled Screen-Sharing and Enabled Mute All?
We have two types of online shows, Self-Promoted & with a Presenter.
Self-Promoted shows can be booked in minutes. You are behind the wheel and have full control over promotion, production, and revenue.
Presented shows are booked with a partner who can help you promote, produce or run your show. Curators can earn a split of revenue.
Ticking as many of these boxes as is available will help you and your audience have a better experience.
Hard-wire your internet Running an ethernet cable directly from your modem will give you a stronger and more stable connection than using WiFi.
Use a Co-host It is extremely helpful to have a pal on-hand to monitor the chat thread and help run technical aspects like muting/unmuting participants or pulling in members of the audience to ask questions directly to the artist.
Lighting Having a light source in front of you (front lit) will yield a much stronger picture than being lit from above or behind. Natural or “soft” light tends to enhance how you look on camera
Webcam Your laptop camera might be fine, but we suggest a webcam with 1080p resolution and at least 30 fps frame rate.
If running an Interactive show on Zoom, you MUST enable “Original Sound”!
Outboard multi-channel with digital processing
Maximal audio quality and control
Diversity of instruments/inputs
Outboard AND software FX/EQ
Full monitoring during performance
Outboard multi-channel
Improved audio quality and control
Diversity of instruments/inputs
Can utilize outboard FX & EQ
Signal limited to outboard gear capabilities
Cannot monitor sound while performing
USB Mic
Improved audio quality
Limited control
Limited to acoustic music
No Gear
Poor audio quality and control
Limited to acoustic music
Pre-Show
Screen-share an image for guests to see when they log in. You can even play some music from your computer for them to listen to (enable "Share Computer Sound”).
Prepare
Make sure the stakeholders in the show are on the same page - Artist, Co-host(s), Curator, etc.
Is the artist(s) interested in doing Q&A with the audience? How often? Is it okay to interrupt the artist(s) between songs to spotlight a fan and produce some engagement?
Does the artist plan to take requests at all? If so, do they want to prompt the audience themselves or have the moderator bring them forward?
Does the artist want to be able to hear cheers from the audience ("Un-mute All”) and if so, how often / for how long? Some people LOVE the “Un-mute All” function for applause, and some find it really abrasive.
Consider tuning into a well-produced show by another artist to gain insight into how you’d like your show to be similar or different
Running the show
A few tips about Zoom for a smooth and enjoyable production:
Rename Co-host in Participants panel to include public indication that they are a co-host
Gallery View = See large groups of people at once
Speaker View = See only the active speaker or Spotlighted participant
Spotlight = highlight a participant or artist video for everyone
Pin = highlight a participant or artist video only for you personally.
Record = The video recording will be what YOU see in real time. If you’d like to use the video for promo after the fact, you might want to leave it on Speaker View
Use Chat to field questions from the group at large or cue artists or participants via Private Message
If transitioning between artists or participants, Un-mute and Spotlight them before it's their turn to take the “mic
