Saturday Night (Simulated) Live! The rise of pre-recorded content

It’s mid-April 2020, in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic. We’re all stuck at home and even TV productions have stopped going into the office. 

Saturday Night Live, a show that is built around a large ensemble cast of comedians, has been shut down like the rest of us. 

In-Person Event to a Virtual Event

Rather than just cancel indefinitely, SNL had to move their in-person event to a virtual event. No studio audience, just the livestream. No group production, just Zoom and other recordings from home. 

So how did this well-resourced high stakes event make this transition?

With Pre-Recorded Content! 

The Rise of Pre-Recorded Content

SNL understood something important. When the stakes are high, and you need to keep people’s attention, you don’t leave things to chance. 

SNL has LIVE in their name! And yet, the entire show was pre-recorded. Because it plays to an audience and could (theoretically) be live, we also call this “simulated live.”

With pre-recorded content, SNL could:

• Reduce their anxiety by knowing they had all the (great) content ready to go
• Avoid live technical glitches, bad lighting or sound, or sudden bursts of profanity
• Have more cast members included from more locations
• Make the show more polished
• Keep viewers attention better
• Get great ratings!

What’s Your Pre-Recorded Content Plan?

If you are doing webinars, meeting and conferences online, you need to be thinking about your pre-recorded content. Like SNL, you can reduce your anxiety and make your event much more engaging. 

You need tools and resources to be able to easily collect video from your members and experts around the world, and be able to easily mix and edit that content into something your attendees will love. 

That’s what we are doing at Gather Voices these days, helping our clients transition from offline to virtual. If you haven’t seen our tools, sign up for a demo. I promise you won’t be disappointed!