First Impact Live · 7 min
Plan a multi-location broadcast in this order: audience map, contribution map, connectivity assessment, production design, rehearsal plan, then equipment. Deciding equipment first is the most common reason multi-site productions become expensive and fragile.
Step 1: Map the audience
Every location, every language, every group that must be able to watch, and how each of them will access the broadcast.
Step 2: Map contribution
Which locations speak, when, and for how long. This is what separates a genuinely multi-site production from a single production with many viewers.
Step 3: Assess connectivity per site
Upload capacity, network policy, firewall rules and a named local contact at each contributing site. In several countries this step also decides whether local infrastructure or travelling equipment makes more sense.
Step 4: Design one programme
One running order, one graphics package, one director. Sites should feel like parts of the same broadcast, not separate feeds stitched together.
Step 5: Rehearse the transitions
Rehearse each site hand-off with the people who will actually be on duty, and agree what happens if a site is lost mid-programme.
Step 6: Only now, equipment
Technology is chosen around the production, never the other way around. Local infrastructure can be combined with First Impact production direction where that serves the project better.
