Need Setup Help for Live A/V Distribution Feed from outside to community center

[evan1762]

Hi all, new to posting on the forum but longtime follower. I always appreciate everyone's feedback and have learned a lot from all the posts.

Our church is having their Greek festival in 3 weeks and the chairmen want us to come up with a feasible and cost effective short term solution to a live audio/video feed from an outside stage to the community center 500-600ft away. We do not currently have any professional cameras or equipment setup other than just basic equipment but are looking into a capital budget for next year.

The festival attracks thousands of people and I want this to be a good show for them. Due to capacity maximums outdoors, some of the attendees will be indoors in our center to eat their food and we would like for them to watch the live stage performances while they eat.

The down and dirty setup would be a home video camera setup to videotape the live performance and sent to the indoors center 500-600ft away shown by a projector on a screen. We do have an indoor sound system for audio purposes.

I appreciate all your feedback to assist us with a quick and efficient setup. We will of course look at setting up a better system for next year.

Evan

[cmchamp]

Welcome to your first post.
If you want the overall quality of the festival to be exceptional, I'd look into renting the proper equipment, and therefore understanding what would be expected for a "quality" production.
It's not just "piping" in a single shot and some audio.

[petereit]

I agree with Cory. A rental house should be able to provide technical assistance to get everything set up properly for an overall positive experience. If you've never done something like this before, you're inevitably going to make assumptions that a) won't work, or b) won't work well. With only 3 weeks to go, you simply don't have the time to learn everything you need to know to do it right.

[evan1762]

Thanks Cory and Mark, getting a rental company was my first intuition and you guys just reaffirmed it.

Evan

[tdangelo]

Evan,

Be prepared that if you rent the necessary gear to shoot the stage multi-camera, microwave or fiber to run the video and sound to the building, possibly a projector and screen in the building and some labor to help set it all up properly, operate it and strike it, trucking, etc; you probably looking at a few thousand dollars (between $2,000 - $10,000).

You may want to "manage expectations" first from whomever is making the request and see how important this really is to them and what type of investment they are willing to make to insure it goes well.

At least then when you call rental houses you can have a budget in mind.

[evan1762]

Thanks Tom for your reply. As of now I'm waiting for a quote from a rental company this afternoon. I know that this is a costly endeavor and have passed the information along to the chairperson. We will definitely have a budget in mind for next year.

Evan