Celebrating Rowing from the Grass Roots Upwards
The Background
British Rowing, as the governing body for the sport, is responsible for the development of rowing in England and the training and selection of rowers to represent Great Britain.
Rowing has a proud history as one of Great Britain’s most successful Olympic sports producing World, Olympic and Paralympic Champions from across the United Kingdom. The squad is supported by the National Lottery Sports Fund.
The Approach
Streeem was asked to deliver the virtual awards ceremony and from the outset the decision was taken to pre-record the event, rather than broadcast it live. This allowed polish such as graphics and animation to be added to the final edit, as well as ensure all-important details such as the names of presenters, finalists and winners were correctly spelt.
Pre-recording also removed much of the pressure around live broadcasting, although it did mean the timeframe to produce the event was greatly reduced from several weeks down to just one.
Open dialogue throughout the planning stages and into the execution made
it possible for Rich Stock, Head of Communications & Marketing at British Rowing, to suggest experimental ideas with the confidence that the team would give honest feedback around what would work and what would not.
Several innovative ideas that were successful included the Chair of the body and host of the event, Mark Davies introducing the awards while walking along the Thames and talking to the camera; and Mark surprising Steve O’Connor at Fulham Reach Boat Club with an award.
As perfectionists, both parties continued to keep in regular contact during the post-production phase. Streeem sent Vimeo clips to Stock, which provides a straightforward tool to comment and feedback on. Details Streeem added such as music were also checked with British Rowing to ensure the look and feel of the recording was hitting the mark.
Davies presented the main awards ceremony in front of a green screen, while prominent members of the rowing community were scheduled to appear behind him in segments announcing each award category, the nominee and winners. Helen Glover, double Olympic Champion, appeared to present the medal of honour, British Rowing’s highest award, to Robin Williams. They were recorded on Riverside FM, a platform that records videos remotely in high- definition quality, ensuring the presenters and host were equally well presented.
The Result
Rather than the traditional dinner ceremony which hosted 200-300 guests, taking the awards virtual allowed them to be far more inclusive, involving guests from the rowing community at grassroots up and down the country.
Streeem fully pre-recorded, edited and streamed the final result out on the British Rowing website.
YouTube received over 1.5k views, while around 5k were reached via Facebook. Social media engagement spiked during the 45minutes the ceremony was broadcast, with 766 tweets, likes and retweets on Twitter, vastly up on a typical day.
The Feedback
“The team at Streeem’s approach throughout the entire process, from pre-record to post-production was extremely practical and orientated to helping us find solutions to deliver what we wanted. Their enormous experience gave me the reassurance that I was in more than capable hands and I appreciated Dominic’s plain talking when assessing more innovative ideas for the broadcast.
Feedback from viewers around the rowing community has been overwhelmingly positive. Streeem was brilliant to work with and we have been more than delighted with the outcome.”