As live events have gone completely quiet, audiences are at home, meeting planners have put their schedules on hold, and we are holding our breath to figure out when or if we can reschedule. Venues have been shut down, and we have been given the “stay home, stay safe” order multiple times now as extensions have pushed out into May in Michigan.
In the case of the Boy Scouts of America, Michigan Crossroads Council, they were also in a very volatile situation, as they shifted from Plan A, to B, to C… Their annual spring event, the “Building Character Celebration”, honors the current class of Eagle Scouts from across the western side of Michigan’s lower peninsula. The event recognizes the hard work the Scouts have done in bettering their communities, helping others, and giving back. The Eagle Scouts culminate the year’s Scouting experience with a personal project, and, like other graduates of this year, have typically enjoyed this celebration surrounded by their families, other Scouts, Leaders, and Scouting volunteers. In the pandemic environment of 2020, this in-person experience was unfortunately not able to happen as planned.
As “Plan A” of an in-person event faded, “Plan B” was to move to a virtual event still to be aired live from their hotel event space at the same time and date as the original event. Chase Creative stepped in to assist with the livestreaming equipment, planning to turn the hotel ballroom into a TV studio. We worked with the BSA to ensure their website was ready and able to push the streaming video. We also discussed the room setup with the hotel AV staff to give the BSA a nice backdrop to their presentations.
However, as we discovered the hotel would not be able to re-open in time, a shift to “Plan C” was needed.
The Chase Creative team began new discussions with the BSA group to move their event to a completely virtual format. We determined that the best way to control and capture all of these moving parts was to pre-record the segments for a live viewing on their same original date and time. This would ensure the highest possible quality video feed, solid audio, and a consistent, reliable setting in which to film and display the content. With only 10 days until this special celebration, we assembled our technical experts and got into gear!
The Chase Creative warehouse in Grand Rapids became a video production studio, and we called in our friend, Tom Brooks, from ImageStream to assist with the lighting and green screen backdrop. The BSA representative, Bridget Knight, met us there to assist with the coordination of all of their special guests. As each presenter came in, they were mic’d up, reviewed the script, and were able to record their segment as many times as needed to capture the best possible delivery. (Side note – the BSA has a lot of excellent voice talent, and made our job incredibly easy!) The makeshift studio worked out perfectly and we closed out with a good deal of excellent footage to edit together for the live event!
Back in the editing suite, Tom Brooks also assisted in getting all of those parts and pieces of the video sewn together. Bridget provided us with other videos that had been intended for live playback, a ton of slides and pictures, and voice over recordings to match up. The keynote speaker event sent in his own video of his recorded speech. All in all, the final video was over 60 minutes long. The plan was to stream on YouTube, with the YouTube link also embedded on the BSA website, and on Facebook Live.
Finally, the night of the event came, and we were ready to go live. Right on time, the video rolled as scheduled and the chat started to fill with excited comments from the group. The stream was flawless, with over 400 Facebook engagements and hundreds of viewers on the Boy Scout’s website and YouTube. Bridget told us immediately afterward, “I am getting nothing but amazing responses!! Thank you for helping make this event such a special night and I hope to get to work with Chase Creative and ImageStream again!”
Despite not being able to celebrate this momentous occasion in person, the livestreaming solution provided a safe and effective alternative commemoration. We were pleased and humbled to be a part of this event, and thrilled that the Eagle Scouts still got the recognition they deserved. The hard work and dedication of the Scouts will be remembered, and likely more so for the situation we found ourselves in!
