Conference videography checklist

Conference video gets expensive when it is decided too late. If the crew arrives on the morning of the event and only then starts sorting out the audio feed, the slides and the tripod positions, you are paying for improvisation. Here is the conference videography checklist we walk clients through two weeks before the doors open, plus real costs.

Key takeaways

• Decide what the conference should produce before you decide how many cameras turn up. An aftermovie and full session recordings are two different productions.
• A clean feed from the sound desk matters more than a third camera. Without it you record room echo and the footage is unusable.
• Two cameras cover a normal single room conference. A third earns its place on panels, where several people speak in turn.
• Ask for the slide deck as a file or an HDMI feed. Filming the projection screen gives you flicker and unreadable text.
• Real budget: two cameras, a sound operator and an aftermovie from a one day conference run 1 800 to 3 000 eur. Recording every session adds 1 000 to 2 500 eur.
• One document decides everything: a run of show with exact times and names. Send it to the crew three days ahead, not on the morning.

What has to be decided before you brief a crew?

What the conference should produce. That single question drives the cost, the crew size and the gear list.

There are three typical outputs and each needs something different. An aftermovie, a 60 to 120 second cut, needs moving cameras, atmosphere, people in the hallways and good music. Session recordings need locked cameras, clean audio from the desk and a feed from the presentation. Short quote clips need captions, a vertical frame and somebody listening all day and noting timecodes.

If you want all three, say so upfront. It is doable, but not with two people and one camera. Most billing disputes start exactly here: the client asks for session recordings after the event, when the crew came to shoot an aftermovie and placed cameras where the image looks good rather than where the screen is legible.

What an aftermovie can and cannot do is covered in our article on why an aftermovie is worth it, and the definition sits in the aftermovie glossary entry.

What belongs on the checklist before the cameras arrive?

Work through it two weeks out. It takes an hour and saves you the most expensive hour of all, the one on event day.

• A run of show with exact times and names. Who speaks, when, for how long and with which job title. Send names spelled exactly as they should appear on screen.
• An agreement with the venue sound engineer. The crew needs a feed from the desk, ideally over XLR. Arrange it with the AV supplier, not with the catering manager the day before.
• Presentations as files or an HDMI output. Otherwise slides get filmed off the screen and the text is unreadable on video.
• Tripod positions signed off against the seating plan. A camera in the middle aisle looks great until two extra rows of chairs appear there.
• Power near the camera positions. Extension leads, taped cables and permission to plug into the venue supply.
• Front light on the speaker. Conference lighting is usually set for the audience and the projection. If the only light is the screen behind the speaker, you get a silhouette.
• A radio mic for audience questions. Without one the recording has the answer but not the question.
• One short brief for the photographer and the video crew together. Two people with gear in the same aisle otherwise walk into each other's shots.
• One on site contact who answers the phone. Not the director, who is presenting all day.
• Consent and signage. A notice at registration that filming is happening, and a plan for guests who prefer to stay out of frame.

Why does the audio feed beat a third camera?

Because a weak image can be saved in the edit and weak audio cannot be saved at all.

In a room with two hundred people, an on camera microphone picks up echo, air conditioning and shuffling chairs. Take the same speech straight off the mixing desk and you get a clean voice without the room. That is why the first thing we check on a site visit is where the sound engineer sits and whether there is a spare output.

In practice we record three layers at once: the main desk feed into a recorder, a backup from a lavalier mic on the speaker, and the camera mic as room tone for atmosphere and sync. It sounds like overkill until the venue radio system runs out of battery halfway through the keynote. We have had exactly that happen, and the backup track saved the whole session.

How many cameras does a conference really need?

Two for a normal single room event, three for panels and discussions.

Camera one is a wide locked shot of the stage that runs all day and acts as the safety net for the edit. Camera two is a closer shot of the speaker on a tripod with an operator adjusting it. A third camera earns its place when four people sit on stage talking to each other, or when you want audience reactions. Without it, panels turn into twenty minute stretches of watching whoever is not speaking.

Separately you need B roll: registration, hallways, the coffee break. An aftermovie cannot be cut without it, because it is built from people talking around a table rather than from sessions. That footage needs someone moving freely, not a camera locked to a tripod.

What does conference video cost?

Direct answer: two cameras, a sound operator and an aftermovie from a one day conference come to 1 800 to 3 000 eur. Recording every session with the slides cut in adds another 1 000 to 2 500 eur depending on the number of blocks.

Here is what you pay for. The shooting day with a crew runs 1 200 to 2 000 eur depending on cameras and people. Aftermovie post production is 600 to 1 200 eur, because 90 seconds have to be found inside eight hours of material. A single session recording with slides, a name caption and clean audio comes to 80 to 150 eur per block. Vertical quote clips cost 40 to 80 eur each.

Where you can save without losing quality: shorten the aftermovie. Ninety seconds is cheaper and gets watched more than three minutes. Where you should not save: the sound operator and dual card recording in every camera. That redundancy costs a few eur and is the only insurance against a corrupt card holding the keynote. For a second opinion, this corporate event video production checklist covers the same ground from a US perspective.

When is conference video not worth it?

When you do not know where it will be used. This is the mistake we see most often.

If the conference happens once and has no next edition, an aftermovie has no job to do. There is nothing to promote, and session recordings are mostly watched by people who were in the room. Photos and two short vertical videos for a social recap are the better spend. The maths flips for a recurring event, where this year's aftermovie sells next year's tickets.

The second case is a conference with weak content. A camera cannot rescue a talk that has nothing to say. It only documents it and leaves it online permanently.

Frequently asked questions

How far ahead should we book a crew?

Four to six weeks ideally, two at the very least. The constraint is not the crew calendar but the venue: the desk feed, HDMI from the presentations and tripod positions all have to be agreed with the AV supplier, who has their own deadlines.

How long until the video is ready?

An aftermovie within five working days, or next day delivery for a surcharge. Session recordings usually take seven to ten days, because each one needs the slides cut in and the audio checked.

Can we just use the recording from the projection system?

For internal use yes, for promotion no. Those recordings usually have a low bitrate, no close shot of the speaker and room audio instead of a desk feed.

Do we need consent from attendees?

Yes. Mention filming in the invitation and put a notice at registration, and have a plan for guests who prefer not to appear, such as a seating row kept out of frame.

If you are planning a conference and cannot tell whether you need two cameras or three, get in touch even while you are still choosing a venue. We will go through the run of show with you and say what can be dropped. How we work on events is described on our production services page.