During the first weekend in December, when the nights began to draw in, we supported Kirkwood Hospice to deliver their Light Up a Life event. Light Up a Life is a series of special community events organised by hospices that take place around the UK during the festive period and are usually key dates in the calendar for everyone connected. These events help families and friends to come together to remember and celebrate the lives of loved ones. These events are open to anyone, not just people whose loved one was cared for by a hospice. Usually, the most significant part of these events is the opportunity to dedicate a message in memory of a loved one by lighting a candle, hanging a message on a tree or recording the name of someone special in a book of remembrance and reading it aloud.
Unfortunately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event could no longer take place in person, but we helped deliver the event virtually, helping to facilitate over 1826 dedications. We streamed the entirety of the event live to all attendees, putting unique elements in place to make it feel as dynamic and real as possible. For example, to capture the essence of the usually intimate event, we supplied a range of lights to Kirkwood Hospice including external floodlighting to light the tress/garden area and Fairylights running the length of the path – all of which featured on the live broadcast. For ease of access, we broadcast the event on Youtube so that all guests could attend and streamed live from the safety of their homes. This way of broadcasting also proved an easy way to make the recording available for viewing at a later date.
Due to the obstacles that the COVID-19 pandemic has created such as self-isolating, redundancy and also the chance that the event could no longer go ahead, we put things in place for the situation that any of the presenters weren’t able to broadcast. These provisions included producing pre-recorded content that we shot on-site and at our studio a month prior. However, we were thankfully able to stream live and direct on the evening, which kept the event as if it were in person. For those who couldn’t attend the live broadcast,or didn’t have the technology, we produced 100 DVD’s which were sent out prior to the event, to ensure it was fully inclusive and nobody missed out on such a special event.
To cover all bases, we also ensured we produced a tailor-made tech spec for Kirkwood Hospice with full onsite technical support as standard and a full consultation before the event. We provided all streaming hardware, camera, and lighting equipment and on-screen content, including a video section with rolling names of loved ones in remembrance. We paired this with a transition graphic to change between presenters to avoid dead time on screen due to the location of the setup. This set-up also ensured we budgeted for space required for social distancing alongside using a single mic on a stand to prevent close content with presenters.
“Ayre Events helped us to turn our vision into reality. The Kirkwood Light up a Life event means so much to our supporters, and so we knew, this year more than ever, we needed to bring people together to pay tribute to those they love, one way or another.
Working with Ayre Events, we were able to stream the event live into people’s homes so they could still take part and come together with others in our community safely and comfortably. The comments from our supporters have been wonderful, and we had over 425 devices watching the event, making it our best-attended Light up a Life event yet. We simply wouldn’t have been able to do this without Ayre Events help, advice and technical know-how.
By working with Ayre Events, we were able to reach out to more people and provide them with the chance to pay tribute to their loved ones, despite the ongoing pandemic.”
– Kathryn, Event Organiser – Kirkwood Hospice
It was an honour to be able to deliver such a special live event with Kirkwood Hospice, and we send our thoughts to everyone involved on the day. It was a moving evening, and we are so glad that even with current restrictions in place, the event could still go ahead live, albeit different. You can watch the entirety of the event on the YouTube link below.
We’ve worked with many organisations to live stream their events, we’ve got more information on our dedicated online, virtual and hybrid events page.
