If you’ve always wanted to attend the RT Booklovers events, or if you’ve always wanted to see New Orleans, you can do both now as RT Booklovers Convention utilizes new technology to live stream some of their events.
The live stream experiment began last night at the Pirates and Scaliwags reader event and moved on to the Mardi Gras World event which included floats, beads and candy as well as publishers and authors who sponsored each float.
The technology used was an interface between i-devices and Livestream.com which meant there would be mobility throughout the events, moving through the crowd just as one of the participants would do. The host of the live event, Sheila English of COS Productions, interviewed people on the floats prior to the event starting, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes view. As the merriment continued, live feed streamed in the band, costumes, laughing and participants.
“The tricky part,” says English, “Is capturing the energy of the event while also remaining aware that this is happening live so whatever happens, happens. You can’t edit it out later.”
RT Book Reviews Magazine holds the annual Booklovers event in different cities each year. New Orleans is a city that inspires a positive, energetic community and this year’s convention has brought enough authors, readers and industry professionals to fill the New Orleans Marriott with two over-flow hotels bursting at the seams. An actual accounting of participants was not available at the time of this article’s posting.
In speaking with Kenneth Rubin, who is an executive with RT, he shared that it was his wish to allow those people who could not attend, an opportunity to participate in the fun by watching the livestream of the events and post comments via the livestream site or Twitter using #RT14 to promote community regardless of whether you’re in New Orleans or not.
Live streaming will continue tonight with the Pub Crawl and other RT events will be covered throughout the week. You can follow the live events at https://new.livestream.com/readersevent.
