1YL is Young Life’s international all-staff conference, held every 4 years. In the past it was in Orlando, FL, but this time the group made the journey to Anaheim, CA. The show was produced by Young Life staff members with production setup & management from Access Audio and CTS. I was contracted directly by Young Life to work as a graphics operator.
My role through the event existed somewhere between running graphics and working with Young Life’s marketing/communications team to prepare all assets for the main screens. Due to this unique role, I dubbed myself content specialist, taking assets from leaders and speakers and displaying them in the arena.
It was a pleasure to work with Alex! He’s organized and took our chaos and made it seamless. I appreciated the ability to toss changes his way and have the confidence they would be covered. It definitely made my job easier. Alex is organized, positive, thoughtful, and excellent at what he does. Recommend 100%.
Screen Setup
We were located in the Anaheim Convention Center Arena and setup in the round with a custom stage in the shape of the YL from Young Life’s logo. Because of this setup, CTS wound up flying 8 led wall screens (4 double-sided hangs). A majority of content was actually split IMAG (image magnification) where we would occasionally put up a full screen graphic on one side, with full screen IMAG on the other.
For redundancy, we used 2 ProPresenter machines (primary and backup) and 2 media servers (also primary and backup) running Resolume for the longer videos and any custom screen content. There were a few videos in a doublewide setup that needed to cover 2 screens at a time. We also had one video coming from the band and synced over SMPTE timecode. For these special elements, we ran them through Resolume and let ProPresenter act as the primary graphics machine.
Since this was a little more complex setup, the video switcher was running 2M/Es to the walls. We were going back and forth between content on both screens vs content on just one, there was constant communication around when and how graphics were going up between myself and the video director.
Working as a Content Specialist
Now you know some of the setup, here’s more about the specific role I played.
- Running DSMs. Also because we were in the round, we had 5 downstage monitors (DSMs) with confidence monitor content on them. To keep things simple, we just ran one video feed to these monitors, which meant I spent a lot of time switching content on those screens throughout the show.
- Prompter Support. There wasn’t originally a plan to use any sort of prompter for the speakers, but as we got into rehearsals I realized I needed a solution as a backup. A few people needed some notes on the DSMs but ProPresenter’s slide notes feature is a bit clunky to format text on the fly. Instead, I used OBS to screen capture this teleprompter app and push it into ProPresenter. I then used ProPresenter to send the prompter to the DSMs with the speaker countdown all on one display. This made formatting content on the fly a breeze and made it much easier to support speakers on stage.
- Running content. During the show the majority of the work was firing pre-session slides content, running lyrics for the band, and content for speakers. All the assets themselves were pretty straightforward, but since some were full screen and others were keyed elements, it was enough to keep me on my toes and wound up being a creative challenge.
- Overcoming last minute changes. The most challenging part was getting speaker content last minute and only having a few minutes to load everything before sessions started. This was mostly just images and scripts, with the occasional last-minute graphic animation. I also worked closely with the show caller to make sure we were in sync with any script updates.
Alex was professional, skilled and easy to work with. I felt totally covered and cared for with his expertise and knowledge and foresight. His preparation, knowledge and skillset was amazing. I knew that everything would be top notch and ready to go. In our production meetings I heard him say stuff that he would throw together/cover, but I never knew what all of that stuff was that he did... haha.
Production Pro Tips
Every trip I take I learn something new and I always like to document my lessons learned and share them with others.
- Be prepared to customize. As I mentioned above, keeping up with the various DSM configurations got a little complicated. There were often times where I needed to manually run a teleprompter app and advance slides in ProPresenter simultaneously. To pull all this off, I mapped the multiple DSM configurations and other Pro7 control to a Stream Deck which made things so much easier and fun. Always have gear like this around to make the work smoother and more enjoyable.
- Bring your own drinks/snacks. We were supposed to have catering the whole time we were there, but the coffee/tea was hit or miss. Thankfully there was access to hot water and I brought my own tea in my pelican case so I was never without a warm beverage. I also found these pouches to keep everything organized in my case.
- Open your pelican’s pressure release valve when you fly! When I grabbed my case from the baggage claim in CA, it looked as if someone had repeatedly jumped on the lid. I forgot to open the valve which prevents this so it took the entire Uber ride for it to equalize so I could get back into my case. Heads up!
Personal Takeaways
Like any work I do, it’s more than just serving the client I’m working with, it’s about doing meaningful work. Here are some personal highlights from this awesome event.
- Tickets to Disney. One of the big surprises to the attendees was everyone getting tickets to Disneyland. I was under the assumption this didn’t include us since I thought we had rehearsals so I was blown away one day when they said we had an evening off and free tickets to DisneyLand!
- Nate Bargatze. Another surprise gift for the conference was was a 40 minute comedy segment from Nate Bargatze! I knew this was coming but it was a real treat to sit and listen to a comedy session since he had no content I was responsible for.
- Great production freebies. Young Life is another brand who really takes their free swag game seriously. One thing they gave our team was a custom 1YL Production Team branded Rhoback hoodie that looks great is super comfortable. I made a joke to a friend that I might try to live off the free swag I get at shows. I’ll keep you updated on that!