3 weeks out
Run sheet and brief
We read your agenda and mark where the crew has to be. Most of the value of event coverage is decided here, in an hour, weeks before anyone films anything.
Videography · Event and behind-the-scenes · Sydney
Event videography in Sydney
An event is the one day a year your customers, your team and your best speakers are all in one building. Filmed properly it is not a record of the day, it is most of next year's content, gathered in eight hours.
Grab the snowball. Give it a spin, and watch it grow as you scroll. Just like the room.
1day gathers a year of content
6moments worth having a crew for
48 hoursfor the first social cut
Sydneycrew, and across New South Wales
The short answer
What is event videography, and what should you film?
Event videography is filming a conference, launch, awards night or company day so it produces something afterwards: a highlight film, the speaker sessions, short clips for social, and interviews with the people who came. In Sydney it is normally one or two crew for the day, with the edit delivered over the following fortnight.
The most useful thing to know is that the keynote is rarely the valuable part. The valuable part is the twenty minutes in the coffee break when a customer, a speaker or an executive is warm, articulate and standing still. That footage feeds the next twelve months. The keynote recording is usually watched by the people who missed it and nobody else.
So we plan event coverage around the moments rather than the agenda, using the same analytics thinking behind our search work: decide what each piece has to do before deciding to film it. Because our Snowball SEO platform automates the search heavy lifting other agencies bill by the hour, more of your budget goes into the crew. It sits inside our wider Sydney video production service.
The difference
What is actually worth filming on the day?
An event runs whether or not a camera is there, so the only real decision is where the crew stands and when. Get that wrong and you have eight hours of footage and nothing to publish.
Book the crew around these
- The empty room before anyone arrives, which you cannot get later at any price
- Arrivals, because a full room is the only proof an event was well attended
- Interviews in the breaks, booked in advance with named people
- The close, and the room emptying, which bookends any highlight film
What is usually over-filmed
- Every session in full, when three will ever be watched again
- The whole panel, when the useful part is four answers
- Long unedited records that satisfy an obligation and are never opened
- The dinner, unless something is actually happening at it
If you also want stills, that is our event photography service, and booking both together is meaningfully cheaper than booking them separately because the planning and the access are shared.
The cost
What drives the price of event coverage?
Crew hours and how fast you want it back. An event is a fixed day, so the variables are how many people are filming, how many cameras are running at once, and whether something has to be published before everyone goes home.
One camera, one day
Single crew
One operator for the day covering the keynote, the room and a handful of interviews. Suits a single-stream event where the highlight film is the main deliverable.
Two cameras and interviews
Two crew
One camera locked on the stage, one roving for the room and the interviews, with a dedicated interview corner. The common conference brief.
Multi-stream or same-day
Larger crew
Parallel sessions, or a cut delivered before the closing address so it can be shown in the room and posted while the event is still trending.
We quote a fixed price after a free consult and a look at your run sheet. For indicative Australian ranges across every kind of video, see our guide to what video production costs.
What moves the number, in order
Everything on this list is decided by your run sheet rather than by us, which is why we ask to see it before quoting.
- How many crew, which follows from how many things happen at once
- The length of the day, and whether it runs into an evening
- Whether audio is taken from the venue desk or we bring our own
- How many interviews, and whether someone has booked the people in advance
- Turnaround, because a same-day cut means an editor on site
- How many full sessions are recorded end to end, which is mostly storage and time
The cheapest thing you can do is book the interviews
It costs nothing and it is the difference between a good day of filming and a great one. Ask six people in advance to give you ten minutes at a set time, and tell them the two questions. That is it.
Left to chance, a crew spends the break trying to intercept people who are on their way somewhere, and gets three rushed answers from whoever was nearest. Booked, you get six considered ones from the people you actually wanted.
The second saving is audio. If the venue can give us a clean feed from the desk, the keynote is usable. If it cannot, and nobody checked, you have a beautifully shot recording of a room with echo in it.
The scope
What you receive from an event
Agreed before the day, because the run sheet has no gaps in it for a conversation about scope.
The highlight film
Sixty to ninety seconds that makes someone want to come next year, cut for the follow-up email and the event page rather than for the people who were there.
Interviews, cut separately
Each speaker and customer conversation as its own short piece, which is the material that keeps working long after the event page comes down.
Social clips
Vertical and square cuts with captions, with the first ones back inside 48 hours while anyone still cares that the event happened.
Session recordings
Full sessions where you want them, with clean audio from the desk and slides cut in where they were shown, ready for a members area or a follow-up.
Stills from the footage
Frames pulled and graded for the recap email and next year's promotion, which covers the basics if you are not booking a stills photographer.
The full footage
Labelled and handed over, so a clip you want in eight months does not depend on anyone still having the drive.
The return
What actually gets used after the event?
Worth knowing before you decide what to film, because the ranking is close to the reverse of what most event briefs ask for.
Film for the eleven months afterwards
An event has a very short window in which people care that it happened, and a very long one in which the things said at it are still true. Almost all the value is in the second window, and almost all the briefing attention goes to the first.
A customer explaining, on camera, why they chose you is useful in March, in July and in the following January. A montage of the room with music on it is useful for about a fortnight.
So we brief the day around the pieces that outlive it, and treat the highlight film as one deliverable rather than the point. It is the same argument as our content repurposing work: gather once, publish for a year.
The process
How event coverage gets made
Three to four weeks before, one day on, two weeks after, with the first social cuts back long before the full edit.
2 weeks out
Interviews booked
Named people, set times, two questions each sent in advance. The single highest return thing anyone does in the run up to an event.
1 week out
Venue and audio check
Power, positions, the lighting in the room, and whether the desk can give us a clean audio feed. Answered in advance rather than discovered at eight in the morning.
The day
Filming
Empty room first, then arrivals, sessions, the booked interviews in the breaks, and the close. To a plan, with the plan printed.
48 hours
First cuts
Social clips and a short teaser back while the event is still being talked about, because a highlight film that lands in three weeks lands into silence.
2 weeks
Full delivery
The highlight film, the interviews cut separately, session recordings, stills and the full footage handed over.
The brief
What to ask before you book event coverage
An event happens once. There is no reshoot, which makes these four questions worth more here than on any other kind of video.
Have you read our run sheet?
A crew that has not seen the agenda cannot know where to stand. The answer should include which sessions matter and where the interviews will happen, not just a confirmation of the hours.
Where is the audio coming from?
The commonest way event footage is ruined. Ask specifically whether audio comes from the venue desk, a recorder on the lectern, or a radio mic, and who is checking it.
What comes back in 48 hours?
An event has a short window of relevance. If the whole delivery is a fortnight away, you have missed the moment when anyone was still posting about it.
What is the plan if a session runs over?
They always do. Ask what gets dropped and who decides on the day, because if that conversation happens during the break, it happens instead of your interviews.
We are happy to answer all four and to read your run sheet before you commit. For the national picture, see our guide to covering events for brands and businesses.
Start here
Got a date in the diary?
Send us the run sheet and what you want to have afterwards. The free consult is a working session, not a sales call, and you leave with three things whether or not you book us.
- Your agenda marked up with where a crew should be, and where it should not
- The six interviews worth booking, and the two questions to send each person
- A fixed price for the day and the edit, with the turnaround written down
Good questions
Event videography FAQs
What is event videography?
Event videography is filming a conference, launch, awards night or company day so that it produces something afterwards: a highlight film, speaker sessions, short social clips and interviews with the people who attended. In Sydney it is normally one or two crew for the day, with the edit delivered over the following fortnight.
How much does event videography cost in Sydney?
We do not publish a single figure, because it follows your run sheet. What moves it is how many crew are needed, which follows from how many things happen at once, the length of the day, how many interviews are booked, whether full sessions are recorded end to end, and how fast you want the first cuts back. We quote a fixed price after reading your agenda.
What should we actually film at a conference?
The empty room before anyone arrives, arrivals, the sessions that matter rather than all of them, interviews booked into the breaks, and the close. The interviews are the part most coverage misses and the part that keeps being used a year later.
How quickly can we get something to post?
First social clips within 48 hours, and same day if you brief it in advance, which means an editor working on site. The window in which anyone cares that an event happened is short, so a fast rough cut is usually worth more than a slow perfect one.
Do you record the full sessions as well?
Yes where you want them, with clean audio taken from the venue desk and slides cut in where they were shown. It is worth deciding which sessions genuinely need it, because full recordings are the least watched thing an event produces.
Can you do photography at the same event?
Yes, and booking both together is meaningfully cheaper than booking them separately, because the planning, the access and the run sheet are shared. Stills are handled by our event photography service and we quote the two as one job.
What happens if the schedule slips on the day?
It usually does. We agree in advance what gets dropped first, so the decision is made calmly beforehand rather than in a corridor. The booked interviews are the last thing we give up, because they are the most valuable footage of the day.
Do you travel outside Sydney for events?
Yes, across New South Wales and interstate. Travel and accommodation are quoted as lines you can see rather than folded into a day rate, and for a multi-day event it is usually cheaper than it sounds.