Munich, main hall, 400 guests. The music swells, the lights go down and the countdown appears on the LED wall. The whole room counts along: three, two, one. Confetti, applause, the CEO takes the stage.
Meanwhile in Hamburg. Forty colleagues are sitting in the large meeting room, someone has organised sparkling wine, the glasses are full. On the screen, the countdown is at seven. They count along anyway, with full conviction: seven, six, five. As they reach “one” and raise their glasses, the CEO on screen is just saying: “Dear colleagues in Hamburg …”
A brief moment of silence. Then someone laughs. The wine still tastes good.
Nobody made a mistake. The livestream simply did what livestreams do: it arrived a little later.
What is livestream latency?
Latency is the time that passes between something happening in front of the camera and the viewer seeing it. In a video conference you barely notice it – it’s usually under a second. With a conventional livestream, it can be twenty seconds or more.
Everyone knows the principle from a thunderstorm: first you see the lightning, then you hear the thunder. At a hybrid event, the main hall is the lightning. Every connected location hears its thunder a little later, and each at its own pace.
Where the seconds go
Anyone standing next to a livestream control room for the first time is often surprised by how much happens between the stage and the screen.
The camera captures the image, and the video switcher decides which angle is on air. An encoder compresses the signal so that it fits through the internet connection. It then travels to a streaming server which, for conventional livestreams, cuts it into small pieces called segments – typically around six seconds long. Only when a piece is complete can it be sent. And at the other end, the player keeps a few pieces in reserve, just in case, so the picture doesn’t stutter if the Wi-Fi briefly drops.
Each of these steps makes sense. Together, they add up to the seven seconds missing from Hamburg’s countdown.
A livestream is never quite live – it’s a very fast recording.
Why every location has a different time
How much delay builds up depends mainly on how the picture travels. A conventional livestream takes around 5 to 30 seconds, low-latency methods get it down to 2 to 5 seconds, and real-time connections such as video conferences to under a second. That’s why YouTube offers different modes too: in low-latency mode, YouTube puts the delay at under 10 seconds, in ultra-low-latency mode under 5 – with the honest caveat that the stream may buffer more often.
But the real challenge at a hybrid kick-off isn’t the delay itself. It’s that every location has a different one. Düsseldorf is connected via video conference and almost in sync with Munich. Hamburg is watching in the browser, twenty seconds behind. And the colleague working from home is somewhere in between, depending on whether someone else in the household is streaming Netflix.
One company, three time zones – all in the same country.
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When latency doesn’t matter – and when it hurts
As long as everyone is just watching, the delay makes no difference. Whether the CEO’s speech reaches Hamburg ten seconds later, nobody there will notice. It’s simply the speech.
It gets tricky as soon as everyone is supposed to do something together. During the countdown, one big moment falls apart into many small ones. In a live vote, Hamburg’s votes trickle in while Munich is already celebrating the result. In the Q&A, someone at one of the locations asks a question, followed by that pause where everyone smiles politely, unsure whether it got through.
Latency doesn’t get in the way of watching – it gets in the way of taking part.
How everyone can still cheer at the same moment
The good news: you don’t have to beat physics, you just have to plan for it.
The countdown doesn’t come from Munich.
The most reliable approach is not to stream the countdown at all. Instead, the same video plays locally at every location, started at an agreed time. Munich, Hamburg and Düsseldorf then reach zero at the same moment. The stream only picks up again afterwards.
Those who take part get a fast connection.
Locations that are meant to ask questions or join the discussion are connected via a real-time link with video and audio in both directions. Those who are only watching are well served by a conventional stream. It runs more reliably and can handle 300 people logging on at once.
The running order breathes with the delay.
A vote stays open long enough for Hamburg to cast its votes too. Questions from the locations are collected and put forward by the host, instead of switching back and forth live. For the audience in the hall, this feels completely natural. For the locations, it feels like they’re really part of it.
Latency is measured in rehearsal.
A clock with a seconds display in the picture, a quick call to each location: “What are you seeing right now?” Afterwards, everyone knows exactly how big the gap is. It takes ten minutes and spares you the raised-glasses moment on the day.
Every location has someone who knows the plan.
Someone who starts the local countdown, notices when the sound drops out and knows who to call. Technology connects locations. People make sure they feel connected.
Every location needs its own cue
In event technology, every action in the running order is called a cue: lights down, music up, video rolls. In the main hall, a team sets each of these cues to the second.
At a hybrid kick-off, that’s no longer enough. Hamburg lives in a different time from Munich, even if it’s only twenty seconds. So Hamburg needs its own cue too. If you plan for that from the start, you’ll end up with what a kick-off is really about: a company starting the year together. Truly together.
You can read what a production day with a livestream looks like from the technical team’s perspective in our article “A day in livestream technology”. Find out more about hybrid formats on our Hybrid events page.
Conclusion
A livestream transmits pictures, but not simultaneity. That has to be planned. Then everyone in Hamburg raises their glasses just as the confetti flies in Munich.
FAQ
Latency is the delay between what happens in front of the camera and what the viewer sees. It occurs because the video is compressed, transmitted, split into segments and buffered at the receiving end.
For conventional livestreams, 5 to 30 seconds is typical, and around 2 to 5 seconds with low-latency methods. Real-time connections such as video conferences get it down to under a second.
Not entirely, but it can be reduced significantly. The lower the latency, the more prone the stream is to buffering. That’s why the connection is chosen based on whether a location is just watching or actively taking part.
The most reliable way is not to stream the countdown, but to play it locally at every location, started at an agreed time. That way, all locations reach zero at the same moment.