A planning checklist for live event coverage

Event coverage is unforgiving. There are no retakes on a keynote. Everything that makes the footage good happens in the planning, so here is the checklist we run before every conference, summit, and launch we cover around the Bay.

Two weeks out

Get the run-of-show and mark the moments that matter: the announcement, the demo, the panel everyone is coming for. Agree on the deliverables list in writing, including formats and dimensions for social. Confirm when raw files land. Ours land in under twelve hours, usually mid-event. Walk the venue if possible, or get photos of the stage, the lighting, and the room where interviews could happen.

One week out

Lock the interview list. Speakers are easiest to capture right after they leave the stage, so we schedule interview slots against the run-of-show. Set up a clean interview corner: good light, quiet enough, branded but not busy. Confirm audio access with the AV team, because the difference between usable and unusable keynote footage is a feed from the sound board.

Event day

Cards get offloaded and organized during the event, not after. One shooter owns the stage, one owns the room, because the audience reactions are half the story. And someone from your team should be reachable for the judgment calls, like when the schedule slips and we have to choose between the panel and the hallway conversation everyone will remember.

None of this is complicated. It is just discipline, applied before the day nobody can redo.