I set up a Ustream video feed in an old conference room at the Warner Bros offices in Burbank. With a simple sony hd camera, through a PC, into our network, I can broadcast Aritist ‘s live when they come into the office (which is a lot!).
First was Eric Hutchinson The second was a live video chat with Wayne from Flaming Lips (ustream lost the archive on this one!)
But the best so far was Tyler Hilton. I need to edit this clip down, but for now jump to :50 seconds in and see Tyler light up when he finally sees all the fans on the site.
Free video chat by Ustream
You can see he connects to them and rolls into his first song as if his online community was physically in the front row with him! He played for almost an hour, and seemed to really connect with the experience.
These live shows are a great grassroots tools that connects with the fans with artists. We had over 10,000 people watch the first three shows.
Another goal of the live studio was to capture the spontaneous moments. The community of Artists coming through the building on a regular basis was one of the reason I went live. When neil young and lil scrappy are here at the same time, or Lyndsey Buckingham and The Used. The variety of WBR artist’a is impressive, and I knew id get some some random parings.
Sure enough – during Tyler’s performance i came close! I found out Talib Kweli an Eric Benet were in the building at the same time Tylere was playing! I didn’t end up getting them all together, but as everyone gets familiar with with the studio they will come ready!
Stay tuned!