With the advent of the pandemic, theatres, music and other event organisers and performing artists across the UK needed a cost-effective way to adopt streaming services to host their live events.

We teamed up with PlayerPlus to help.

The performing arts and music industry faced a huge challenge – how to get their live events in front of the audience, when no-one was allowed to visit venues?

Selling content to broadcasters or the likes of Netflix is an option only open to the biggest global shows, and building your own streaming service is complex and expensive. A shared streaming hub, a virtual digital venue that theatres, artists, concert and event organisers could use was needed, one that supported both live and recorded events. The challenge was who should pay and build this ideal outcome for the performing arts industry.

Following success with Soho Theatre, Easel TV were approached by numerous people within the creative industries to see if we could help.
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In response, Easel TV, in association with PlayerPlus, built StagePlayer+ to be a communally ‘shared’ streaming service for the industry. StagePlayer+, supported on Easel TV's PaaS Streaming platform and operated by PlayerPlus, gives theatres, concert organisers and artists a virtual venue to promote and sell shows, providing an invaluable digital revenue stream.
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Built as a pay-as-you-go service, theatres, artists, concert and festival organisers can have their own collections and show pages within StagePlayer+. Here they can publish ticketed live and recorded shows, where consumers can then simply purchase a ticket and start watching the show on a multitude of devices.

StagePlayer+ was launched in 2021 and currently hosts multiple virtual shows for different theatres, distributors, promoters and artists.

Thanks to a simple intuitive interface offered through an iPlayer or Netflix like service, there is no complicated set-up required. With payment options including debit and credit card, in-app purchases and Spektrix ticketing support, it provides the performing arts industry with an additional digital revenue stream to complement their business-as-usual product sales.