Behna Live Webcast Evaluation
Behna, written by Sonia Likahri, was a co-production between Black Country Touring, Kali Theatre Company and Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The play was staged in real kitchens: a rented house in Selly Oak, Birmingham and 6 private homes across the Black Country.
Black Country Touring secured support from Arts Council England, West Midlands Digital Content Development Programme to develop basic video production, editing and web presentation skills and to pilot a live webcast of a performance from a private home. Trilby Multimedia was contracted for this activity.
Each performance of Behna could only have a maximum audience of 20 people, because of the size of the room it was being staged in. For us, the ‘reality’ of this situation was crucial to the success and integrity of the show – a real home was like another personality in the show. We wanted to explore whether we could maintain this, whilst making it available more widely.
Also, when making it more widely available, we wanted to try and retain the feeling of ‘event’ related to the experience and also some of the feeling of communal experience that you get from a live theatre experience.
So when planning the live webcast, we encouraged people to watch it in groups and to chat via the internet with other watchers as a way of achieving this.
One of the key elements of the play is a series of parties which take place as part of the narrative. So we encouraged people to organise their own Behna parties around the streaming of the event and we posted a Behna Party Pack with ideas of what to do on our website.
We wanted the webcast to come from a private home in the Black Country, because we wanted to emphasise the notion of a very small event taking place in a very small corner of the world suddenly being available to the world.
All of these ambitions were achieved, to a greater or lesser extent, as the information which we collected below shows.
The webcast: 133 individual computers logged on with some watching in small ‘Behna Party‘ groups taking the audience to just under 300. The number of computers (logged on) started at 80, peaked 20-minutes in and then dropped to 80 by the end. Most users were in the UK, followed by Canada, Spain, the US and Australia.
The online audience had a variable experience dependent on their hardware and previous exposure to live streams. Newcomers to live streaming expected the output to be more slick, whereas those with some experience were more satisfied.
We had not planned to send the upstream at the highest quality possible as this would have excluded those with basic and dated hardware. In addition we were limited by the internet connection bandwidth available at the home at that point in time, so couldn’t send variable streams catering for different users. We streamed at a rate of 100 kilobits per second. Technically the sound could have been improved. Most users with high quality external speakers and/or headphones managed better with this.
Approx Audience: 800
- Selly Oak rented house – 400
- Private Black Country homes – 100
- Live webcast – 300
We received feedback from 23% of the online audience. In summary:
94% watched because they thought it a novel idea; 33% couldn’t get tickets for or get to the Selly Oak house; 28% stated other; 22% interested in producers’ work; 22% said the web interface. (Could select more than one category).
83% stated they most enjoyed ‘the concept’ about the performance; 56% story; 44% location; 17% other and 6% said being in company. (Could select more than one category).
78% said they’d watch a live webcast again; 6% said no and 16% said maybe.
45% said they wouldn’t be prepared to pay for a live webcast. 22% stated they’d be prepared to pay up to £2; 22% between £2-5 and 11% said £5-10.
72% experienced technical difficulties and 28% didn’t. Of those experiencing difficulties 78% stated sound and 50% vision.
Successes
- Achieving a live uninterrupted web broadcast
- Live chat before, during and after was unexpected highlight
- Increased access to a small site-specific event for a global audience across 3 continents
- Suitability of (intimate) play to be broadcast on web
- Achieved a sense of one-off event
Lessons Learned
- More time to test web connection from location
- More time to experiment with sound and vision in location
- More time for cameras to rehearse with actors in location
- Manage/market expected outcome more accurately
- Discuss/negotiate webcast shelf life with actors/agents for contracts earlier
When repeating again: to improve on the overall technical quality to satisfy more users on varying systems and to communicate the expected outcome more closely to what’s delivered.
More testing and developing time will mean more budget and longer timeframe. This brings additional challenges when working sensitively in someone’s home.
For more insight read blogs: The experiment worked and A three-way marriage.
For full Live Behna Chat transcript download the pdf. BehnaLiveChat.pdf
For further information about Behna and the webcast please get in touch with Bobby Tiwana, Resonate Producer at Black Country Touring on bobby@bctouring.co.uk or 0121 552 0014.
