Live-streaming success for TEDxTokyo

In 2009 Tokyo hosted the first TEDx event outside of the United States. Keen to share the experience with TEDsters around the world, volunteers from Virgin Earth Inc. and Gotcha Media collaborated to provide a live stream of all presentations, in what was another first for TEDx.

Bilingual broadcast

When it came to planning for TEDxTokyo 2010, we looked to see how we could share the ideas presented on the day with a far larger audience. An obvious solution was to cater for local TEDsters by providing simultaneous Japanese translations of the talks. To do this we’d need not only a team of experienced interpreters, but also a lot more cable, double the bandwidth and an even more enthusiastic post-production team to edit the resulting 42 videos.

The day before the event we arrived at the venue with 4 cameras, hundreds of metres of cable, countless computers and a huge array of additional components, all of which were then painstakingly connected together like a huge jigsaw puzzle.

The resulting picture was fantastic. As we went live at 9am hundreds of viewers logged on to our two main high-def streams, choosing whether to watch in English or Japanese. As the online buzz spread (aided by the social media team tweeting out links and uploading photographs from inside the auditorium), so the numbers steadily climbed, reaching over 4,300 unique viewers in 57 countries by the end of the day.

Backstage channel

In another first for a TEDx event, we decided to give our global audience a chance to see behind the scenes between sessions. With the generous support of USTREAM, we set up a third live video channel, interviewing speakers, participants and volunteers throughout the day. Thanks to the wonders of Tokyo’s high-speed 3G data network, we were also able to join the lunchtime buffet down on the shores of Odaiba. This proved to be immensely popular, and by the end of the day this channel had seen over 7,700 unique viewers.

On-demand videos online in hours

A key part of our strategy was to make all talks available on-demand as soon as possible, as, due to time zone differences we were aware that the largest segments of our potential audience (in the US and UK) would be going to bed halfway through the event.

Thanks to an all-digital workflow pioneered by the volunteer production crew, the generous provision of computers by Tokyo 2.0, and the speed of the post-production team from Virgin Earth, we had the first videos up on YouTube within a few hours of the speakers having left the stage. This strategy worked very well, with the videos being viewed over 44,000 times during the following week.

Looking back now, we’re delighted by how far the ideas shared at TEDxTokyo have reached. With total views to date exceeding 50,000, it’s clear that the efforts made by all volunteers have paid off.

We look forward to doing it again next year – the only problem might be coming up with new TEDx Firsts to attempt!

Resources

All TEDxTokyo 2010 talks are now available here

Interviews with speakers, participants and volunteers are available here.