Creators May Want to Expand to Traditional Media, But (Understandably) Have, Ahem, Control Issues

NAB

Successful social media content creators may eye the exposure of TV but if broadcasters want to work with them they need to share data and cede control.

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Those were some of the perhaps surprising revelations from an NAB Show session, “Social Media/Streaming Stars on Growing Niches Into Audiences,” that brought creators together with TV executives to share learnings. Watch the full conversation below or read on for highlights.

“I think there’s a world where TV and content creators can make a lot of amazing things that aren’t being made yet,” said creator and tech reviewer Jacklyn Dallas, CEO of NothingButTech. “There’s a lot for creators to learn from TV, on how they built their brands and authenticity.”

The flip side is that creators think broadcasters can learn from them how to better connect with audiences.

“One of the big take aways is how content creators connect to an audience,” said creator Sean Sotaridona, also known as SeanDoesMagic. “If [TV execs] are able to sit down with creators, figure out what connects them to their actual core audience and then apply that to television that would be really, really good for the future of broadcasting.”

A creator with multiple millions of followers, Sotaridona was inspired to launch his career on YouTube after getting knocked out of auditions for America’s Got Talent.

“Every single time they told me ‘no,’ so I realized I need to do this myself,” he said. “I know I’m talented. I know I have the energy to grow an audience. And then from freshman year of high school I started taking social media really seriously.”

Sotaridona attributes his success to the authenticity and directness of social media’s connection with an audience, unlike TV magicians, where he said the presentation felt staged.

“Magic on social media feels more real and the reactions feel so much more genuine. I think that’s what captivates my audience.”

He added, “The beauty of being a content creator is that it’s more genuine, it feels more real. I grew up watching Dancing With The Stars, or The Bachelor but I have no idea what the host of The Bachelor [Chris Harrison] does outside of that show. If you watch a YouTube video, you can feel the actual connection and there’s more genuineness within the content.”

Yet his ambition remains to be a huge TV star. “What appeals to me about television is that it solidifies your name in the entertainment industry. TV is still a validation. I don’t think that TV will be going away anytime soon.”

Travel video journalist Juliana Broste said most content creators aimed to have their own TV show. “There’s still something so magical [about TV] that people want.”

But retaining control is considered important to creators. YouTube uber-star MrBeast just signed a $100 million deal with Amazon Prime because the streamer gave him full creative control.

“I’ve had friends get a TV contract and then they just lose so much control that they feel like they don’t own it,” said Broste. “They’re only making their day rate and they can’t control it.”

Quinn Nelson, owner and host of Snazzy Labs, said that his experience of producing slots for TV has not been positive. “What I didn’t like was that [my reports] needed to be succinct to the point where it didn’t feel substantive. And that’s a big issue.”

There’s also an issue with the pacing of traditional TV which is problematic for creator’s video communication, “and you have to cut to ads,” which is problem that doesn’t exist on YouTube.

Dallas said, “as long as there’s an alignment on creative control, and what the incentives are, then TV can be really positive.”

They all chalked up the sharing of detailed data by social platforms on viewing patterns as a key to their success in tailoring videos to the algorithm.

“YouTube gives you so much data, minute by minute analytics which traditional media does not and I feel like that type of analysis really helps you make smart choices,” said Dallas.

Sotaridona checks his metrics from YouTube and TikTok every day to see how a video performed, “what the swipe-through rate is, what’s the click-through rate on the videos. But also we don’t want the metrics to dictate everything that we post, because as a creator we have the freedom to also post what we love.

“So I have a mix of content that’s meant to go viral and content that’s also for me.”

Creators also commend the quality of partnerships they have with social media platforms, principally YouTube.

“One of the things that is unique about YouTube is that their revenue split is fifty-fifty with creators and so they’re equally as incentivized to do algorithmic recommendation on channels,” said Nelson. “It’s a symbiotic relationship. If we provide value to YouTube, then they return it in kind.

The growth of internet-connected TV could bring the worlds of TV and social media closer together.

“My perception has been that for a long time there hasn’t been much data that can be derived from television based content. Whereas on the internet side, we’ve had a wealth of information down to the millisecond about when people stop watching and why,” said Nelson.

“Now that data is coming over to the TV side. We finally have this information, so how can we use this to modify our content?

“Just be careful and remember why it is that people find what you create interesting, because data can really only do so much.”

Behind the Scenes: Supacell

IBC

Rapper and filmmaker Rapman tells IBC365 about making his sci-fi drama Supacell with Netflix, emulating Ryan Coogler and why “anything can happen in a Rapman show.”

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What if a group of strangers living in South London one day discovered they had superpowers? That’s the setup for new Netflix sci-fi drama Supacell which is written and directed by local hero Rapman who says this is just the beginning.

“Supercell season one is the prequel,” he says. “That's what I tell anybody. It's literally my Batman Begins. The show could have started in season two but the decision we made was to take it back to the beginning about where it all started.

Rapman, the alias of rapper and filmmaker Andrew Onwubolu, burst onto YouTube with dramatic tales of South London street life in Shiro’s Story and Blue Story. He converted the latter into a 2019 feature film which was the subject of headline notoriety when Vue Cinemas temporarily shut screenings following a machete incident in Birmingham. This was blown up into ‘riots’ by some press, condemned as institutionally racist by others.

“I don’t want to get pigeonholed as just a ghetto writer,” Rapman said in 2019 in ‘making of’ film accompanying the Blue Story release.

In that 10-minute short, which is available on iPlayer, you can see the genesis of Supacell happening in realtime.

On the top deck of a bus travelling around Southeast London with Blue Story cast members Rapman spins an idea. “I would like to do a sci-fi one day like Misfits [2009-12 E4 comedy drama about young offenders in South London gaining superpowers],” he says.

“Imagine if someone where we came from gets powers.”

His actors brainstorm what super powers they would like if they could mutate one gene. One says reading minds, another wants telekinesis, another suggests teleportation. Rapman says he wants to have super speed 

“I’m gonna go home and start writing this movie tonight” he jokes.

But he wasn’t joking. That’s what he did

“The idea was in the back of my mind but that was the first time I ever said it out loud,” the 35-year old creator tells IBC365. “I started writing Supacell as a film, but it just was too rich, too full to fit into a two hour window and I just extended it into what we've got now. That bus ride was one hundred percent literally the beginning of where this started. It's crazy. The minute I spoke out it started forming.”

Creative control

He'd first met with Netflix in 2018 before Blue Story came out and had pitched them another script.

“That story didn't land but it built a good relationship with the network,” he says. “So down the line we met up again and they asked if I had other ideas. I kind of mentioned Supacell and I remember seeing the reaction on their faces like ‘That sounds really good, can you tell us more?’ It just built from there. It never even got a chance to get seen by anyone else because they literally snapped it up.”

The 6-hour series represents a significant uptick in budget complete with VFX and the latest Arri Alexa 35 cameras.

“We didn't really have any money for Blue Story,” he says. “This definitely has a bigger budget. I enjoyed the green screen stuff, learning things I've never done before. When you've got more money, you get more toys, you get more equipment but you’ve also got a lot more departments to manage.
“When I was doing my indies, I was playing a part in everything but as showrunner on a show this size you can stretch yourself a bit thin. Luckily, I had good people I could delegate to.”

They include lead cinematographer Aaron Reid who says, “Every reference Raps gave us was American. It was Marvel and DC, Snowfall, BMF and The Wire.

“The idea was to keep it grounded - until it isn’t,” adds Reid. “The opening scene is very stylised and hints at what is to come. Then we revert to a drama that looks and feels normal. The way their super powers are shown is exactly how Raps envisioned it.”

The micro budgets for Blue Story and Shiro’s Story necessitated guerilla-style filmmaking on South London streets but complete creative control. The director says Netflix also gave him the freedom to tell the story he wanted.

“I won 99 per cent of the battles, basically. Whatever you like as a viewer of this show I can put my hands up and say, ‘yeah that's me’ and whatever you don't like on the show I have to put my hands up as well. I couldn’t blame Netflix if I wanted to because it would be a lie.

He adds, “As a creator they support you and help you to sculpt [the story] but the creative decisions about where the TV show goes is on me.”

On location

Supacell is not only set in South London but is filmed on location in Deptford, Peckham and Thamesmead. Rapman is keen that an international audience gets to see the places where he grew up in a more positive light than news headlines might suggest.

“That’s the biggest thing for me because I want people to really know what South London is like- that it isn’t just the one world. It’s seeing how our streets look, what our food shops look like, how we talk, the energy in the street.

“I was born and raised in South London and I really want people to see the truth of it. I don't feel like I've seen a TV show that is so unapologetically South. It was really important that it didn't come across doom and gloomy like a lot of shows in the UK. I wanted it to be colourful and for people to really know how vibrant South London is.”

It’s still not the norm and therefore noteworthy that a British show of this size has a predominantly black cast.

“I don't know if a show like this would have got made 10 years ago, even five years ago,” he says. “But it’s not the only recent TV show that has a majority black cast. So for anyone to say [diversity] is not getting better would be a liar. Is it where it should be? No, there should be more. But it’s progress. A step forward is better than a step back.”

Anything can happen in a Rapman show

Rapman admires director Ryan Coogler whose career went from gritty indie drama Fruitvale Station to Marvel blockbuster Black Panther. Supacell seems to merge both of those elements into one.

“When I look at Coogler he made Fruitville Station, which I could call my Blue Story and then he made Creed and that became massive” says Rapman. “If Supercell does what Creed does, I'll be very happy! Coogler kept his original storytelling, he made smart choices, and went and adapted a comic book. I’d love to emulate his success.”

It’s clear he hopes Supacell is his Hollywood calling card.

“I think it's important that storytellers have their signature, their voice,” he says. “You watch a Scorsese film and you know he likes to do narration and have stand out characters. I think in Supercell you get to hear my voice and get to know my style.

“If you want me on your project you know what type of story I'm gonna tell. I like to put heart in, I like to make the stakes high, I like to make it funny.

“Some people might not love it and others will love it but you're gonna know that’s a Rapman type of show and a Rapman type of story.  

He adds, “Anything can happen in a Rapman show. We're not PG where everything’s gonna be all right in the end.”

Authentic performances

One of the main characters in Supacell, a gang leader called Tazer, is played by actor Josh Tedeku with an on-screen charisma that recalls that of British born Hollywood star Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out). He has since appeared in A Town Called Malice and Boarders but Supacell was Tedeku’s first main role.
“That character was very hard to cast. We saw every young male actor we could think of from the age of like 17-27. At one point Tazer was going to be a 25-year old playing a teenager. We looked at everyone. We saw so many potential Tasers I remember sitting down with my casting director [Isabella Odoffin] wondering who can do this. Everyone was coming with such a stereotypical way of what that character should be.”

Rapman liked what he saw from Tedeku’s audition tape. “He was even better in person. He had this calmness and stillness. The gang in Supacell are your typical street kids. But Tazer is more thoughtful. He doesn’t raise his voice. We needed someone who understood that. There aren’t many actors like Josh who have that emotional range at only 19.”

He coaxes performances out of a cast of unknown or inexperienced actors by bringing them into the process. “When I sit down with my actors and going through a scene with them, I’ll refer to the story and ask what would you say in this situation? I know you're not the character, but would you speak like that? Would you raise your voice or would you be calm? I want to get them to perform that character as natural as possible. You can call Supacell a sci-fi but it's really a character driven show so you need to understand how these people talk. You need to understand their dialogue, their mannerisms so you can connect with the audience.”

Season 2 lined up

Back on the bus in 2019 Rapman said he would love to possess the power of being superfast because he would then wouldn’t be late for anything.

Fast forward to 2024 and he says the superpower he most wants now is to be able to teleport

“With teleportation I can do exactly what I could do with a super speed only easier.I don’t have to run or burn calories. I don’t have to zigzag through buses and trees.”

He demonstrates this in episode 5 of Supacell where a character with superspeed and a character with teleportation skills race off against one another.

Supacell may start out grounded in Peckham but it doesn’t look like it will end there. The sci-fi elements of the storyline could see future episodes going forward or backward in time, and jumping to any location

“This season is about getting to know the characters and getting emotionally invested,” Rapman says. “It is the beginning of a big world. I know what I want to do for seasons two and three but it's out of my control. Hopefully I will get a season 2 and I can really get going.”

 

 

IBC Unveils Lineup for 2024 Show, Promises Tweaks to Familiar Formula

Streaming Media

Trade Show is back on track to almost pre-COVID levels, according to organisers, in an update given three months before the show on September 13-16 opens in its usual Amsterdam home. 

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There are some tweaks to the familiar formula but perhaps not enough to galvanise anyone’s attention outside of the broadcast industry. That is IBC’s goal, though, with CEO Mike Crimp saying that the fastest growing area of the show were audiences working outside of traditional broadcasting.

“IBC is such a broad church and covers so much more than core broadcasting,” he said in a briefing to press. “IBC originated as International Broadcasting Convention but it’s been clear to us for some time that content is being consumed and delivered in a number of ways. Going back 15 years we decided to be agnostic about that. The idea of content everywhere was to pull in people who maybe didn't see their home immediately as broadcast, but certainly had an offering for the media and entertainment business  This is actually still the biggest growing area of the show.”

Content Everywhere Returns

To cater to this audience, IBC is bringing back a hall dedicated to Content Everywhere. This is the Pavilion erected outside of the RAI which last housed exhibitors in 2019. In here, and in line with other exhibitions, there’s a specific AI Zone grouping together AI solutions providers and a demo/presentation theatre. This is being curated by the EBU and sponsored by Wasabi.

“AI is one of the biggest expanding areas of the industry, and I feel we will see it grow up a bit at IBC with real world examples moving on from the machine learning seen in the past,” Crimp said. Elsewhere at the show there will be a conference panel devoted to tackling fake news and fact checking and in the IBC Accelerator section, a kickstarter for tech ideas, there’s a proposal by Paramount Global and the BBC titled "Design Your Weapons in the Fight Against Disinformation."

AV/Broadcast Convergence

The convergence of AV with broadcast was noted, and for the first time IBC seems to have gone out of its way to court giant corporate AV users. It has invited executives from the likes of AstraZeneca, UPS, Barclays Bank, Bank of England, Deliveroo, and Schroeders to a “speed pitch event” with IBC exhibitors.

“Exhibitors have the opportunity to promote their products and events directly to those major AV purchasers,” Crimp explained. “What's different about them is they're not the typical broadcast or media entertainment companies you'd see at IBC. We’re seeing more buyers coming into IBC who are looking at, what we would consider standard broadcast technologies being used in innovative ways across the corporate sector.”

He said the development reflects the growing professional audio visual presence in M&E. So-called AV Broadcast is being used by enterprise-level customers to produce and stream at broadcast quality for live and virtual and corporate events. Other content plus tech trends dominating the industry are Free Ad Supporting TV (FAST) channels and summer of live sports so it’s not a surprise that both of these also feature prominently.

For instance, there will be a look back the Olympics and the technology used to deliver it, provided we are not all fed up with Olympic content by then.

eSports (which will be an official Olympic event in LA 2028) makes another appearance in the form of a Hall 8 showcase in partnership with specialists Unlocked.

Steven Connolly, IBC’s head of sales and show director, claimed “exceptional demand” for show space and reported that 45,000 sq ft had already been taken – surpassing the total for the whole 2023 show. That’s from 1,100 exhibitors across 14 halls, which is one more than 2023. There are 150 new exhibitors signed so far including 5G Broadcast Collective, CDN Alliance, Datacamp, Eosos, Frequency Networks, Medianet Berlin, Strada, SwXch IO, and Vubiquity. Others including Insta360, Robe, The Weather Company, Vecima, and Yamaha return to the RAI for the first time since before the pandemic.

All other regular exhibitors are present including Avid, AWS, Comcast, Google, Grass Valley, Harmonic, Huawei. Imagine Communications, LG, Lawo, Mediakind, Microsoft, Nagra, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Tata Communications, Telestream, and ZTE.

Conference speakers include Chem Assayag, Senior VP Home Services Innovation, Orange; Kerry Ball, Chief Commercial & Strategy Officer, BritBox International; Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder of AI platform Builder.ai, Huma Lodhi, Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Sky UK, and Andy Hood, VP Emerging Technologies at WPP with more to be announced.

If you have to pay for the conference than it will cost over EUR1000 (USD1074) if you pay now. Since IBC2023 attracted 43,065, no bookie will take odds on this year surpassing that, though they might take your bet of 50,000 visitors. By contrast, the US-based equivalent NAB Show counted 61,000 people through its doors in April and the AV-centric ISE show in February this year scored 73,891 visitors and had a keynote from a Star Wars director.

Connolly noted, "There is already a very positive buzz around the exhibition this year — visitors to IBC2024 will see exciting demos and get the chance to meet an increasingly wide array of innovative brands from across the media technology landscape. With the introduction of the AV User Group event, IBC continues to broaden its scope and provide more opportunities for both exhibitors and visitors."

Daily Mail unveils expanded video strategy

Stream TV Insider

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British media conglomerate Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is expanding the reach of its leading news brand Daily Mail with a long form video strategy intended to make it the “world’s most popular video publisher”.

The strategy includes production of original content produced through the company’s Global Video Studio and builds on an established social media presence. Daily Mail claims to be the largest news publisher on TikTok with more than 13 million total followers and more than 8 billion views in the past year.

The news was announced at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, where in 2015, Daily Mail hailed launch of its new daily news show as a “game-changer” for the international entertainment business.

DailyMailTV was syndicated across the U.S. from 2017, winning a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Entertainment News Program in 2019 before shuttering in 2022.

According to a spokesperson for Daily Mail, the focus of the new initiative will be YouTube but video content will also publish on the Daily Mail site and other distributed platforms.

“More and more consumers are watching YouTube on their TVs so this strategy is about meeting audiences where they are,” the spokesperson told StreamTV Insider.

The initiative is aimed at tapping more of the growing audience watching on connected TVs, which are in around three quarters of UK households and on which ad spend will likely double in the UK between now and 2028 to £2.94bn ($3.67bn), according to the IAB.

In the U.S. the potential is far larger with advertising investment on CTV expected to grow to reach $24.4 billion in 2025.

Dominic Williams, chief revenue officer of Mail Metro Media, said in a statement: “We’ve already seen huge audience growth across social platforms and have the media ecosystem to support this brand-new proposition, engaging younger and more diverse, as well as existing loyal audiences, with the Daily Mail brand.”

Also announced are the first in a slate of 20 original titles ranging from 15 to 30 minutes and spanning the brand’s mix of politics, showbiz, sports, true crime and update on the British royal family.

The shows include Price of Fame, which reveals how expensive life becomes when you’re famous, Your Body on Sport that delves into the physiology of pro athletes and Expert by Decade, where three people who held the same job at three different times in history explain how that profession has changed, and more.

These series will amplify the publisher’s current video output, which helps deliver over 125 million monthly views on YouTube.

Tony Manfred, global head of video at Daily Mail, said in a statement, “People are obsessed with video, and publishers are extremely well positioned to create and distribute that video across phones, computers and connected TV, on a global scale. We’ve built a team to produce a huge variety of repeatable, identifiable and premium quality shows, to engage millions of views on YouTube and across our distributed platforms.”

Additionally, Daily Mail also says it will offer premium sponsorships, native integrations, commerce focused ‘playlists’ with Q&A and live experiences across its video portfolio.

The Daily Mail Online claims to be the most-read English language newspaper website in the world with approximately 243 million unique visitors.

The Daily Mail newspaper was first published in Britain in 1896.

‘It’s Vegas baby!’ Where AV is big, bold and out of the box

AV Magazine

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Las Vegas is ‘Mecca’ when it comes to pro audio, video and lighting equipment, and applications. Live entertainment, sports and conventions drive the market, setting the global standard for others to follow.

“Very few other regions around the world have the budgets or scale of Las Vegas to support the investment in new technology, and continuous upgrades of pro AV kit are constant,” says Eric Loader, global vice-president, sales and marketing, Elation Professional. “The forecast indicates sustained growth, fuelled by technology advancements and continued investment.“It’s Vegas baby! Everything is big, bold, and out of the box!” exclaims Doug Fundator, sales director, SNA Display who lives in town. “The pro AV market can thrive because everyone is trying to re-invent the Vegas experience. Designers, builders, and end users embrace the latest and greatest technologies to provide an AV experience for visitors they can’t get anywhere else.”

“The difference with Vegas, explains Matt Morgan, business development manager, Ross Video is that (clients) are sometimes more willing to invest dollars in the best tech and content they can in order to acquire the business. In Vegas you are truly experiencing immersive AV technology as you explore.”

A-Vegas laboratory
Sean Sheridan, General Manager – Americas, Brompton Technology calls the place “exceptionally important as a hotbed for AV experimentation and hosting high-profile events.”

The city’s “vibrant atmosphere, state-of-the-art facilities and constant influx of visitors provide a space for innovation,” says Levi Lavrinyuk, director of marketing, Lightware.

Meyer Sound specialist, Jonathan Deans points out that the city is funded by huge crowds attracted by light, projection, and sound-driven attractions.

“The market has to be unique and cutting-edge for all pro AV,” he says. “The audience travels here for a one-off experience and expects this from every event, casino and performance venue. A bespoke experience is very important.”

The city remains one of the fastest growing in the States. “With the explosive residential growth comes new schools, entertainment, retail, and medical venues,” says Mikey Shaffer, senior director of sales at Listen Technologies. “The market is hopping!”

Travis Hull, Creston’s director of hospitality says: “There’s a staggering amount of opportunity in Vegas, and it goes beyond gaming. The growth of sportsbook facilities has been profound,” he adds. “These betting lounges are inspiring competitors throughout the States, where this kind of gaming has been legalised.

They’re all deploying very large LED screens with some level of personalised interactive display and advanced signage. Each resort needs to leverage other amenities to help keep customers on premises.”

Garrison Parkin, regional sales manager at Renkus-Heinz points to “the constant feeling of properties trying to ‘One Up’ each other with massive sports books, clubs and showroom upgrades. With continual hotel casino expansions and remodels the pro AV budgets are usually sizable.”

Dazzling direct-view LED canvases deliver ‘glitz and glamour’ says Datapath’s senior manager, Keven Yue but in Vegas videowall applications “are considered as ‘mission critical,’ as a control room.” That’s because videowalls are important to a casino’s operations and brand, he says,

It’s perhaps why the local systems integration market is unusual. “Most of the SIs in the US Top 50 have little or no presence here,” notes Yue. “Most AV integrators in Vegas are indigenous to Vegas and cater to the specific needs of the city.”

Others agree that Vegas is a bespoke and locally driven market. “Having good relationships within the casinos, local general contractors, and architectural groups is imperative to being successful,” says Fundator.

Lighting up town
Malls and entertainment venues have started making “really big investments” in DooH signage says Peerless-AV’s senior director, business development, Megan Zeller. “Businesses are finally ready to spend again after a period of project suspension or backlog.

In some cases we’ve been approached to come in and replace LED mounting structures or outdoor displays that weren’t suitable for the use case or environment - perhaps they hadn’t factored in seismic activity or intense heat and desert sand – and the product has failed earlier than anticipated.”

There’s big business in the luxury guest room market. Crestron is involved in lots of these at iconic Vegas properties. “Its clients want the resort experience to mirror their residential amenities, so they’re looking for ultra-high-end AV spaces that feel like home,” says Hull. “We’ve seen tremendous demand for control systems, especially lighting control. This goes well beyond AV, and it goes well beyond a single vertical in the region.

There’s demand too among outdoor pool nightclubs, indoor-outdoor lounges and restaurants for lighting product built for heavy-duty use and minimal maintenance – “essential for outdoor and challenging environments, where reliability is paramount,” says Loader.

Venues prioritise well-integrated systems to deliver immersive and multi-event experiences. “What’s interesting about Las Vegas is the need for a high level of production across many diverse forms of entertainment all within one facility,” says Brian Grahn, regional sales manager, Clear-Com.

“The Director of Production at a property might be tasked with supervising a large performance venue which may host a major artist residency, a nightclub with constant special events and artist collaborations, meeting/special event spaces hosting high-end corporate events and award shows, plus the artists and bands performing every day on the casino floor at the piano bars and restaurants.”

The Michelob Ultra Arena, part of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Las Vegas, has hosted everything from headliners like Katy Perry, to the Latin Grammy Awards, and it’s the home of WNBA Championship team Las Vegas Aces.

“While much of the specialty production equipment is brought in on an event-by-event basis, the infrastructure of such a facility is important to remain flexible in how they can deploy their core AV production systems,” reports Grahn.

Poker broadcast
In the gaming industry, there are often production opportunities hiding in plain sight. Live poker streams have become popular as casinos have begun to create their own content. A celebrated example is Bally Live Poker, broadcast live from properties, including the Tropicana Casino, several times a week to thousands of online viewers.

According to Grahn, the production is managed entirely in-house, and features all the aspects of a high-end broadcast: “Players are individually mic’d with several cameras covering the action and reactions, sophisticated graphic overlays of players hands and win percentages, all with insightful commentary from industry pros, edited and streamed live.”

At the heart of the communications system for the poker stream is a Clear-Com Eclipse HX Delta matrix, with FreeSpeak II 1.9 GHz wireless beltpacks as the primary user interface. Production crew, camera operators, and even the dealers are connected via intercom to orchestrate the stream.

Sports and casino merge
Vegas sealed its international reputation in the 1960s with the Rat Pack but now sports take equal if not top billing to artists in residence.

“In recent years, major headliners have been the draw, whereas previously it was spectacular/production-based performances,” says Deans. “The past few years had a huge influx of sports stadiums, along with event-based experiences.”

The city has welcomed NHL (The Golden Knights), NFL (The Raiders), WNBA (The Aces), and Formula One has made Vegas its home for the next decade.
“Sports franchises not only bring the need for AV pros in the stadiums but also for the practice facilities and other applications, such as conference rooms for management,” says Hull.

A new baseball stadium built on the site of the former Tropicana on the Strip will be the new home of Major League Baseball team Oakland Athletics. Interactive experience Atomic Golf teed off in March boasting 102 golf bays, VIP suites, a nightclub, full-service bars, a taproom, and a chef-curated kitchen over four floors.

“The M Resort is Raiders-branded, and it’s very close to their practice facility, eight miles off the strip,” says Hull. “They’re currently building a second tower for that hotel to meet demand. Additionally, now we have an F1 race, hotels are looking for ways to add rooms and spaces that feature views of that street course.”

A Howard Hughes Holdings and Sony Entertainment-backed 500,000 sq ft film studio is planned. A ‘Symphony Park’ will be added to the city, as well as a large expansion of convention space downtown. The Brightline high-speed rail link from LA-Vegas due in 2028 will continue to drive growth.

“Recent openings of Resorts World, Fountain Bleu, and the Sphere have already raised the bar for entertainment venues, fuelling competition and the demand for more cutting-edge AVL solutions,” adds Loader.

Fountainebleu, the newest luxury hotel in the heart of the strip, features multiple dvLED video walls installed by Peerless AV in its conference centre.

The Worre Studios is a 25,000 sq ft production facility which “redefines events by seamlessly merging virtual and traditional formats,” says Lavrinyuk. A stage-in-the-round design is enveloped by a 360-degree, 1.9mm, 4K LED interactive screen system, powered by Lightware’s UBEX.

“Vegas thrives on spectacle, innovation, and larger-than-life experiences,” he says. “The approach here is not just about providing technical solutions - it’s about creating immersive, unforgettable experiences.”

Above and below: Illuminarium at Area 51, Las Vegas, is a visitor attraction giving guests an immersive experience of Space or an African safari using 4K interactive projection, 360° audio, in-floor vibrations and scent systems.

Part of the experience
Las Vegas is a key hub for festivals and concerts that constantly push the boundaries of AV technology. Sheridan picks out Vegas’ Electric Daisy Carnival for its “mammoth stage setups incorporating massive LED screens and complex light shows that elevate the audience experience.”

When the Sphere opened last autumn at the Venetian, another eye-opening yet distinctly intimate entertainment venue made its debut at the same resort. Voltaire features architectural and theatrical lighting by design studio, Lightswitch.

“It’s interesting to compare and contrast those two ways of thinking about entertainment,” says Lightswitch principal, John Featherstone. “Both venues offer experiences pushed to the extremes - one a massive edifice of technology that immerses you in a grand experience, and the other a beautiful, intimate space that offers a remarkably personal experience.”

Local competition compels venues to provide the most compelling immersive and experiential show in town. “Now the game or the band you’ve booked to see isn’t everything like it used to be,” says Zeller. “They’re just part of the overall experience. Screens are supplementing what’s going on in the field or on stage.

“The Sphere is mind-blowing inside and outside,” she adds. “Such major tech activations wouldn’t have happened if designers and architects hadn’t witnessed what happened there. It made people up their game!”
Another example, during Super Bowl LVIII played at Allegiant Stadium in February, the STRAT hotel was turned into a 1,149 ft tall bottle of 1942 Don Julio tequila with projection mapping.

“It’s literally a laboratory for this kind of thing,” says Hull. “Vegas is known for gaming and entertainment, and by its nature, the city must innovate to remain the top destination as other locales try to mimic what Las Vegas is accomplishing.” Visitors are familiar with neon signs advertising the latest act around town. “Now, you become part of the show before you sit down,” says Morgan. “We see more immersive technologies highlighting what’s happening around town broadcast on the Sphere, to AI triggers changing the signage and lights as you walk through a resort. No longer do we just passively take in information, we’re part of an experience.”