A few months ago, I had to livestream an event for my clients and I found myself looking for the perfect app. They were getting married and asked me to set up a livestream for people who couldn’t make it because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Long story short, every streaming setup I looked into seemed extremely complex or expensive.

I started to look for options online and I came across a few different apps on Google. I tried OneStream, LoveCast, and YouNow until I found one that was perfect for me and my clients.

EventLive is the one I’m talking about.

EventLive

Why Use A Phone Streaming App, Instead of A Camera?

For me, this was an easy answer. Setting up my camera takes a lot of time and leaving a single cable at home means that the whole live stream would be at risk.

I would also need to test the upload speed to choose the correct bitrate, and this app does it for me. Fewer things to worry about.

Even though I have professional gear, going live from a smartphone is a lot easier to do.

EventLive

It takes very little effort, the battery can be charged while using it, and if I need to move around during the event, I don’t have to bother people around me.

As the smartphone doesn’t attract that much attention, I can even get closer during their vows without blocking anyone’s sight. I knew my client’s grandparents and other family members around the world would be watching so I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to access it.

Social media and Zoom would not work. Not everyone would be able to join live, and the thought of having family members create accounts to watch a live event makes no sense to me.

I wanted an easy solution to livestream an event, and I found it.


Looking For An App With Great Live Streaming Features

Amongst the requisites, I needed some basics that would help me create a beautiful page for the event. Being able to broadcast to a website that looked great was mandatory for me.

My options were to embed it on a custom site, which involved too much work, or to choose a live-streaming app that included a neat viewing page.

I found exactly what I was looking for on EventLive.

EventLive

Since it was for a wedding, I went with them because they offered a digital guestbook for my clients and they could invite unlimited people.

Some people also use them for bridal showers, baby events, and even funerals.

I decided to test the event at home and it looked great. The EventLive staff suggested that I test it outdoors, on location. So I did.

I loved the test page and I decided to use it for the real deal. At 50 USD it was really affordable, and It was a paid job, so it was part of the costs. It was still cheaper than other apps that offered ugly pages and nobody to reply to my emails.

One last thing that was important for me, is that we needed to extend the days of the event. As my clients had a traditional Indian wedding, we were going to broadcast a 3-day wedding.

The Sangeet and Mehndi on Day 1, the Wedding on Day 2, and the Reception on Day 3. Most platforms didn’t allow that, but I contacted support and somehow they merged 3 events into one, which allowed me to keep going live to the same page.

I didn’t have to invite hundreds of people again to a new link for every day of the wedding.


How The Live Stream Turned Out

To be honest, I thought it would be more complicated.

I started live streaming much earlier than I should have to fix any problems that never happened, and I brought backups in case my phone battery died or anything like that.

I did use a microphone which I completely recommend if you’re going to try this yourself.

136 people tuned in for the live event, and, at the moment, another 43 watched the replay. It’s still online so people can watch it for a long time after the wedding ends.

Everyone said that the quality felt like they were there, and as I was using my phone, I could get close to them and get some great shots that I shared with them once the live stream download was ready.

I think it was worth every penny and a few hours of research. I’m glad that I found a live-streaming app that met my needs because otherwise, I’d still be looking for one.