Case Study: IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program Project

Music Venue Trust, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, d&b solutions and many others are pioneering a new cross-industry initiative to connect live performances from multiple venues in real-time — bringing together remote performers in new ways with 5G and ultra-low latency to make live events more accessible, sustainable, and engaging.

A team of arts institutions, experiential technology and software companies have unveiled a breakthrough innovation project to create connected, synchronized live performances across remote event venues. Showcased for the first time at IBC2024 in Amsterdam, the cross-industry initiative pioneers new ways to connect live performances from multiple venues in real-time — bringing together remote performers with ultra-low latency to make live events more accessible, sustainable, and engaging.

 

IBC Champion Participants


The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program project, Connecting Live Performances of the Future with ULL-AVLM (Ultra-Low Latency Audio, Video, Light and Media Data), has been driven by cultural, media, broadcasting and academic institutions, including the Music Venue Trust, EBU, University of Strathclyde, Kings College London, TV2, University of Kent, and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama — along with innovative AV technology and connectivity providers including d&b, Spectral Compute, Salsa Sound, and Neutral Wireless.

IBC Project Technology

Pushing new boundaries in shared live experiences

The mission-critical push for sustainability, the explosion of the experiential economy, and the rise of shared reality immersive technologies pave the way for an evolution in connected experiences. Meanwhile, arts and music venues, particularly smaller grassroots locations, are searching for ways to improve the accessibility of live performances to increase potential audience reach and drive wider revenue opportunities. Today, performers and productions need to be able to engage with audiences more economically and sustainably.

Chris Sherrington, Policy and Strategy Support at the Music Venue Trust, a charity that represents over 840 grassroots music venues across the UK, said: “Touring is expensive and lots of artists simply can’t afford to reach the number of smaller local venues they might have done previously due to a lack of grassroots funding support. Innovation in connected performances is one way of allowing venues to drive more ticket sales, empower artists with wider reach, and give creatives more access to advanced tools across sound, lighting and motion capture technologies. This project has also unlocked new ways for audiences to enjoy and support live performances at their favorite venues with a dynamic and experiential feeling that goes far beyond streaming a gig on your TV or laptop.”

The project set out to create natural, authentic and immersive experiences at two or more connected venues that could give audiences an equitable experience across each venue, regardless of where the performers were located. This required ultra-low latency connectivity and the real-time synchronization of all live performance elements: audio, video, lighting and media data — as well as enabling bi-directional interaction with performers. Original performers would then be represented as virtual humans on stage across secondary venues, allowing them to engage with each other in real-time from venue to venue.

Andy Hook, Director of Technology and Strategy, d&b, commented: “Innovation across audio, visual, lighting and media is powering more accessible, immersive experiences for the arts and entertainment sector. This project has championed leading-edge tech and new creative methodologies to bring performers and audiences closer than ever — connecting spaces, places and people in unique ways. Seeing this project come together has been incredibly rewarding and we look forward to helping venues and arts organisations experiment with and implement these types of new immersive technologies.”

Overcoming synchronization challenges

While existing methodologies allow the transmission of audio, video, lighting, and auxiliary data to a secondary venue as individual elements, doing this in an asynchronous way with varying delay times makes maintaining real-time synchronization and immersive interactivity unfeasible. The key challenge this initiative overcame was the ability to stream all these data sources together in real-time at the same latency. Software company Spectral Compute created a ‘wrapper’ to collect, synchronize and deliver these diverse data sources together as one MPEG transport stream.

IBC Accelerator Unveils New Route to Creating Real-Time Connected Live Performances

Michael Søndergaard, CEO & Founder, Spectral Compute, said: “The wrapper meant that any delay in input would be replicated on the output in a synchronized way, ensuring the performers could seamlessly engage with each other while audiences felt an authentic experience without clunky delays across one or more of the performance elements. We like solving tough problems and pushing for ultra-low latency is at the core of everything we do. It’s been fantastic to see this breakthrough initiative come to life and we’re excited to see how this type of technology can benefit the live entertainment industry – today and in the long-term.”

Across the past four months, participating companies trialled multiple proof-of-concept (PoC) iterations of the collaborative solution. The first PoC involved a dual-location set-up between experience technology provider d&b’s studio in Wimbledon, London and the University of Kent’s theatre facilities. The culmination in August was a final PoC between grassroots music venue The Sound Lounge in Sutton and d&b’s immersive technology experience center (ITEC) in the Science Museum in London. The final trial successfully delivered synchronized, interactive live music and theatre performances between the two venues, bringing together the learnings and successes since the project’s inception to demonstrate new possibilities in connected live performances.

Sam Yoffe, Postdoctoral Researcher at Strathclyde University and Senior Systems Engineer at wireless connectivity and private 5G network provider Neutral Wireless, added: “It isn’t always easy for theatre-goers or music fans to make it to live performances and see their favourite bands or shows. We’re delighted to play our part in increasing live entertainment accessibility — and we’re only just at the tip of the iceberg. Building on this project’s success by extending the use of 5G connectivity to connect smaller and more remote venues marks an exciting next step in enabling ultra-low latency, real-time interactivity between locations.”

Powering future potential

Muki Kulhan, IBC Innovation Co-Lead, said: “The potential here is massive — imagine being at a gig in New York with one half of a band, while the same performance is happening with the other half of the band in London, with both performances perfectly synced. This project continues to champion new ways of thinking about live performances in music, arts and culture — breaking down barriers, reducing travel requirements, connecting geographies and supporting the live events community with more creative and accessible experiences, especially for fans and audiences too.”

To learn more about this IBC Accelerator ‘Connecting Live Performances’ and listen to the project team’s proof-of-concept demonstration and Final Showcase Session at IBC2024, click here.

About the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program

The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program brings together broadcasters, technology pioneers, content creators, arts institutions and academia to tackle real-world industry challenges through collaborative innovation projects. These projects culminate in first-time proof-of-concept demonstrations at the event, next taking place from 12-15 September 2025 at RAI Amsterdam. Designed to help media, entertainment and tech organisations fast-track innovation, the initiative brings together teams of ‘Champions’ — media, arts, and other industry leaders — and ‘Participants’ — solution vendors, start-ups and technology pioneers — to work on shared problems and explore new solutions. More than 35 project proof of concepts have been showcased by over 180 organizations since the program’s founding in 2019. The call for 2025 Accelerator projects will open in early October 2024.