When our client SortedFood took the plunge into running their first hybrid event, Kinura’s experience ensured that the channel’s energetic, fast-paced video style translated into the livestream format.

Chef Ben and ‘normals’ Barry, Mike and Jamie set up their YouTube channel Sorted Food in 2010, with the aim of helping people become better home cooks – so that even when they don’t feel like cooking, they don’t have to turn to ready meals or takeaways, which are often expensive, unhealthy, and not very planet-friendly.

Over time the friends’ online food community grew to include social platforms and a kitchen companion app called Sidekick, in addition to their burgeoning YouTube channel, which today boasts 1.8k videos, with 2.69m subscribers. 

Having reached a monthly engagement figure of 15 million foodies a month, it was time to unleash their particular brand of creative kitchen antics on a live audience, and the idea for The Big Christmas Bash was born. This hybrid event took place in mid-December 2022, and saw the friends bring their unique brand of fun, no-nonsense cooking ideas and entertainment to live and remote audiences simultaneously, in real time – three times, over two days.

Professionally polished livestream broadcast

Having worked with Kinura for a few years on various projects, Sorted Food brought the team on board to work with their in-house camera operators, to handle camera feed management, along with the digital and graphic assets, and deliver the livestream broadcast. 

Thanks to a 360-scope setup of six cameras, enabling footage of both the presenters at their studio-style kitchen and the audience, the live vision mixing captured the energy of the event, to ensure Sorted Food’s characteristic high-energy presentation and witty banter came across in the lively way that their fans have come to expect.

Rigorous set-up for smooth-running live events

Two of the three 150-minute live shows were broadcast via a paywalled YouTube link; in total the event generated an in-person audience of 1,600 and around 11,000 live stream attendees, plus 1,400 or so on-demand viewers since.

“We worked closely with Sorted Food and their production team Indigo Productions to make sure that the event went without a hitch,” explains Olly Reeve, Director at Kinura. “Two and a half hours of live broadcast in one go is no small task, so we advised two days of set-up, rehearsal and technical checks to ensure that everybody knew exactly what they were doing and when, to make sure the end result was seamless and everything went according to plan.”

Problem-solving venue challenges 

One of the biggest challenges was the live event venue itself. Grade II listed Shoreditch Town Hall is a grand mid-19th century Italianate style building, and its interior architecture not only created a challenge for the wireless camera signals, but unlike with modern buildings there was no integrated wiring to facilitate easy patching of cables. 

“We had to run cables through corridors, taking into account the appropriate health and safety considerations, since these spaces also had public access. This made it a very complicated set-up,” says Max Elgar, MSO at Kinura. “The thick internal walls also sometimes caused wireless camera signals to drop, which is why constant vigilance and coordination for the camera team was critical – if one camera dropped, we would swiftly cut to another while somebody dashed to fix the problem. Thanks to our team’s live broadcast expertise, nobody watching would have any idea this had happened!”

“Professionalism was sky high”

“We’re delighted with how smoothly everything went, especially as it was our first live event and pushed our team outside of our comfort zone a bit,” says Ben Ebbrell, Co-Founder and Director at Sorted Food. “The way the Kinura team were able to problem-solve in a fairly tough environment was incredible, the communication was excellent even under pressure, everyone mucked in, and professionalism was sky high. We’re already looking forward to working with Kinura on our next hybrid event in summer 2023.”