McFarlane Promotions
Jul 25, 20203 min
Updated: Nov 19, 2020
This Spring, San Diego Pride made the decision to cancel the annual Parade and Festival which has hosted over 140,000 people each year for 45 years. This one weekend a year gives the LGBTQ+ community a space of freedom to celebrate love, unity and individuality. It is also a weekend where attendees have access to education on the vital services provided by dozens of non-profits and serves as the main fundraising event for the San Diego Pride organization and their year round programs.
In times of global uncertainty, we are all called to pivot and the decision was made rather than to cancel San Diego Pride in its entirety, the celebration would be hosted online as San Diego Pride Live. This 7+ hour virtual experience highlighted the history of San Diego Pride, Community Partners, volunteer stories, entertainment performances and more. Sponsor commercials were scheduled in to honor the contributions of loyal supporters and donations were accepted live.
During the planning process the regulations of local and state officials for safe reopening was continually evolving. The original plan for San Diego Pride Live was to have approximately (4) 5-minute live shots per hour with the location of those live shots transitioning from Hillcrest businesses along what would have been the Parade Route to the Festival grounds. Our team at McFarlane Promotions worked with local venues to confirm the spaces, infrastructure requirements and technical needs. We had back-up internet and data plan options for each location to handle broadcast requirements. We thought we had everything buttoned up and ready to go…until we got word that the Governor was about to make another announcement…
Faced with another set of challenges we rolled with the punches and moved to Plan C? maybe D? (we lost track). All live shots were broadcast from the individual homes of the cast except for the Host who was in a secure outside area at a prominent Hillcrest business, Inside Out. We worked with the filming/broadcast crew to run the technical side of the broadcast from the Casino using broadcast technology that had never before been used for a streaming event of this magnitude.
We ran tests and adjusted everywhere as needed…When the software wouldn’t allow as many people into the backend at once as we had planned, we switched to Google Hangouts…When internet connections were poor we changed devices, restarted and hardwired to new sources. Event planning has always been about expecting the challenges that will arise and being judged by your ability to master them. In the current circumstances, we have adjusted to predicting new challenges and figuring out how to solve them at the same time software is being developed, regulations are evolving daily and we are all adapting to the ever-changing ‘new normal’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jenna Thompson
Jenna is a mountain based Yogi with a love for veggie focused foods. When she's not in Warrior Pose you can find her spending time with her Avalanche Rescue Dog Luna with a Matcha Latte in hand!