Here’s what we’ve learnt from watching 30 online shows

There’s a lot of advice out there on how to make your online show good. Our team has also produced a few interviews and advice columns to help musicians, bands, and show organizers make the best of the current situation (key ingredients to make a great online show, best summer online show themes, fans’ opinions and preferences when it comes to online shows).

But as we went along, we’ve realized that a lot of advice was based on one’s ideas of an online show and limited experience of attending, at best, a handful of such events. This is why we’ve decided to watch as many online shows as we could in a week and see if the advice we had for musicians to improve on their online performances and concerts got any better and farther than what’s already out there.

And boy, were we in for a surprise.

Get your elbows off the table, keep your shoulders back, and look people in the eye as you talk to them are the kinda messages we all heard fromour parents and caretakers, but it doesn’t become obvious how vital these simple yet effective changes to your behavior are to the overall perception of you as a person until you watch back a video of your public speaking opportunity or appearance at an event or a TV show.

Same with online shows.

It may not cross one’s mind that you have to remind anybody to stay off their phones and not answer texts or fix the camera during a live online concert, but that’s what people resort to automatically, as a defense mechanism in a new environment.

Holding a show is stressful. Holding an online show you’ve never or rarely ever done before is unexpectedly stressful — you are just chilling in your house doing what you love.

Many musicians come to their online show either expecting it to be like their usual concert or a videochat with a friend. There’s no middle ground.

And these two groups actually both have thingsto work on. The people who treat their show as any other in-person performance often forget that the venue, other audience members, the crew behind the show, all contribute to the distinct show vibe and that alone is a huge factor in why the event is entertaining.

During an online show the performer is responsible for building connection with the audience and focusing on them solely, making them feelcomfortable, connected with the musician and music and welcome to the event.

That requires some presentation skills and ability to communicate effectively with the audience that’s far away — be warm and open yet not wander into long avenues of reading everybody’s comment.

The polar opposite are those who treat their show as a chill hangout with a friend. It’s good to add personality into your show but it’s still work and has to be a professional performance with costumes, set, and good sound and video quality. Sweats or your laptop mic do not belong at any online show.

Other major lessons we’ve learnt are:

• music is the most important part of your show
• cluttered or poorly lit background can ruin your event
• have a program and know where youare leading your audience
• you can’t skip your rehearsals

We’ve outlined these and several more in our original blog post sharing our thoughts on this topic along with the screenshows of the amazing shows we’ve come across as part of our experience (we’ve also linked every single one we’ve watched for this piece).

So head on over to the full blog and share your thoughts on this in the comments! Also — send this to your musician friend that you think could use the advice.

By the way, all of the shows mentioned were ticketed events and we support artists getting paid for their work.