Ernst & Young (EY)
Event Background
The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ (EOY) is one of the world’s most prestigious business award programs, operating across more than 60 countries to honor unstoppable visionaries who drive innovation even during times of unprecedented global change.
For the 2020 China Awards Gala, the program faced an exceptional logistical environment. Due to strict pandemic-related border controls, travel restrictions, and quarantine mandates, a single physical venue was impossible. To ensure the ceremony proceeded without compromise, the event was re-engineered as a synchronized, cross-border hybrid experience spanning three interconnected physical hubs: the EY Hong Kong Office, the EY Shanghai Office, and a dedicated venue at a Shenzhen Hotel.
The Challenge
The primary difficulty was navigating severe pandemic-related travel restrictions and strict mandatory quarantine protocols across borders. Because the gala could not be hosted in a single physical venue, it had to be executed simultaneously across three separate geographic nodes: the EY Hong Kong Office, the EY Shanghai Office, and a secure Shenzhen Hotel hub.
The main technical hurdle was eliminating the physical distance entirely without incurring exorbitant production costs. Managing three separate full-scale broadcast teams across these regions would have generated unsustainably high man-day and quarantine overhead. We were tasked with finding a way to deliver an elite, zero-latency, cross-border broadcast that allowed judges, presenters, and nominees to interact in real-time with pristine audio and visual clarity—all while operating with an extremely streamlined footprint on the ground.
The Solution
To circumvent the extreme financial and logistical burden of pandemic quarantine policies—which would have created unsustainably high man-day costs—LiveMakerPro engineered a highly efficient remote production strategy:
Centralized Master Control Room (MCR): Instead of deploying a full-scale production team across borders, we built and managed the primary Master Control Room (MCR) in Hong Kong, serving as the central switching and command hub for all three locations.
Ultra-Lean On-Site “Travel Teams”: We deployed an optimized, minimal crew consisting of only one cameraman, one audio engineer, one lighting technician, and one director per remote site. This skeletal crew minimized travel and quarantine overhead while maintaining high production values on the ground.
LRT™ Cross-Border Transmission: All high-definition video, audio, and communication feeds from the EY Shanghai office and the Shenzhen hotel were transmitted back to the Hong Kong MCR over the LiveU Reliable Transport (LRT™) protocol. This guaranteed rock-solid, ultra-low latency signal bonding over standard networks.
Unified Virtual Gala Flow: The Hong Kong MCR synchronized the incoming live feeds seamlessly, overlaying dynamic graphics and managing real-time cues, creating a unified awards ceremony that flawlessly bridged the geographic divide.
