Allen Harris Photography
For millions of Americans, March 2020 saw daily life change tremendously in the course of a few weeks. For Sam White, owner of MSI Production Services, things changed so quickly he almost had whiplash.
MSI Productions has specialized in producing live events since its foundation in 1997, creating and organizing everything you see at a typical corporate convention or event, from tables, linens and chairs to sound systems, lighting and presentation equipment for intimate receptions or enormous galas. In early March, when the country first began shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, White was loading his truck to prepare for an event in Frankfort hosted by Gov. Andy Beshear. He got a call the event was off. His phone kept ringing.
“We lost millions of dollars’ worth of contracts in 48 hours,” he said. “We had to pivot really quickly.”
“We lost millions of dollars’ worth of contracts in 48 hours. We had to pivot really quickly.”
Many industries have seen heavy job losses since the pandemic began, but White says people in his line of work — those who work behind the scenes to make live events happen — have been especially hard-hit. A survey taken in mid-April by the publishers of “Projection, Lights and Staging News” and “Front of House” magazines found only 5.75 percent of surveyed business owners were able to keep all their employees through the pandemic. The survey also found 76 percent of business owners lost 100 percent of their existing cash flow streams, and 47.6 percent had to lay off all employees. Some 97 percent of freelance workers, who make up a substantial portion of the employees at MSI and companies like it, lost their 1099 income.
“Think about all the thousands of people out of work — there’s not been a state fair or a local fair,” said White. “The concerts, the trade shows; all of them are cancelled. We’re just starving … and unemployment is running out on all these guys. We were the first industry to close and we will be the last industry to reopen.”
White has never been one to stay down for long. A Lexington native, he toured with rock and Christian bands out of high school, learning the ropes behind the scenes on how to set up the lights, sounds and scenery for big shows. He launched MSI in 1992 and went full-time in 1998, and he wasn’t about to let COVID-19 make his business another statistic.
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MSI Production Services owner Sam White reviews a recording with an event host.
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The studio is equipped to broadcast a high-quality video feed anywhere in the world.
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The solution for almost everyone unable to host an event in person these days is a virtual event, but anyone who has sat on a painful Zoom call knows they’re not a comparable or well-polished alternative to sitting in a ballroom. National television stations are conducting more interviews by setting up subject matter experts and politicians with a webcam, charities have taken their biggest fundraisers online, and large companies still need to host events where a speaker can show their screen to a large digital audience. Poorly positioned cameras showing an executive shadowed by inadequate lighting and struggling to mute conference participants isn’t going to cut it for a lot of those situations.
White set about figuring out how to give web events the same polish he brought to in-person events, while maintaining social distancing. First, he needed to create a studio where someone could be recorded or live-streamed without cameramen or sound engineers getting close to them, so he built a black-box studio and modified existing camera equipment to be controlled remotely and transported if needed. (The control room is in the office’s kitchen.) He had to ensure the internet signal would be strong enough to upload a livestream without crashing. He had to write code to make things look the way he wanted them to. He had to hire a lawyer to rework contracts to structure deposits and cancellation clauses in case of pandemic changes.
Allen Harris Photography
MSI Production Services can broadcast to all social media channels simultaneously.
Part of what makes MSI’s approach unique is the company is able to broadcast professional-quality video to up to 35 different social media channels at once, so a business or organization doesn’t have to worry about followers in different spaces missing the live event.
MSI has also been creative in adapting to whatever arrangements clients feel comfortable with. White has done hybrid events for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, setting up an in-person event at a hotel with a limited, distanced audience and broadcasting to another three quarters of the audience online.
Kyle Bedford, events manager for the Chamber, said that when coronavirus cancellations first began happening, he called White to brainstorm.
“We had to reimagine how this was going to work,” said Bedford, who pointed out it’s important for audience members to be able to ask questions of speakers like they would at an in-person event. “What Sam is able to do is he takes Zoom and throws it on steroids. He’s got a lot of nice equipment that’s much better than your typical Zoom meeting. I think the events we put on are known for not being half-done. We try to provide the attendee with the best experience possible and we know Sam is such a perfectionist he’s not going to cut corners.”
White has worked with Rep. Andy Barr to broadcast a remote live spot for Fox News. He has hosted weddings, church services, awards shows and drive-in movies. He even has a plan for how to help the Lexington Ballet go on with its yearly production of the Nutcracker, one of its biggest fundraisers. The ballet has rented out the Lexington Opera House for four days and dancers will perform in front of a camera crew and an editor, who will create a video version of the experience available to paid subscribers online.
“We’re salvaging people’s events,” White said. “Are they what they were? No, but it’s better than not having them because, if you don’t, people will forget about you. Especially on the [nonprofit] side. Don’t not do it this way because you don’t know how.”
White said he’s thankful to have been able to adapt so quickly, because he doesn’t anticipate things are going to be getting “back to normal” in the live events world anytime soon.
“You will not see another live event with over 1,000 people in a room until a year from now,” he predicted. “It’ll be two years before you see 25,000 people in a room. People are spooked.”