Live Event Video Streaming – a Hot Trend

This first concert festival to really popularize the live streaming of full live sets was the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Ca. This annual April concert event features dozens of bands and while the live streaming started with just a few smaller bands being featured the festival has recently started to webcast full sets by headliners like Morrissey, The Killers and The Cure. Because the economy has caused many people to skip the $200-plus festival, the webcasting is a great way for fans to see their favorite bands without spending any of their much needed cash.

One of the coolest festivals to recently embrace the trend of live event video streaming is the Chicago based Pitchfork Festival. This recent 2009 festival introduced full live coverage through their new Pitchfork.tv feature. Unlike in previous years, the video was clean and crisp and didn’t suffer from any loading problems before or during the streaming. The Flaming Lips, The National and more were not only featured live during the performance but is archived for viewing after festival.

The Bonnaroo Festival, which takes place on a typically rainy weekend in June on a piece of Tennessee farmland, features a large list of a-list artists. Typically leaning towards “jam-bands” as well as the newest alternative talent, Bonnaroo was one of the first festivals to fully embrace live event video streaming. While big bands were at first fairly gun-shy about allowing festivals to broadcast their sets free over the web, this year’s web stream featured such huge artists as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as well as a reunited Phish webcasting their performances. Furthermore, Bonnaroo was the first festival to sign a contract to broadcast a few select performances to music television station FUSE for a broadcast later in the month.

Lollapalooza, the grand daddy of summer touring festivals and now a yearly occurrence in Chicago, featured brand new live streaming technology during this year’s festival which led to some of the clearest, fasting streaming ever for an event of its type. The festival also pulled out the big guns showcasing several of their headlining on their webcast.

It will be interesting to see where this ever improving technology will go for future live festivals. With more festivals embracing live webcasting (festivals are doing record business even with the free webcasting) fans are now getting opportunities to see their favorite bands from the comfort of their own computer anywhere in the world.