I think the time zone thing shouldn't be too big of a concern. When you're dealing with a niche interest like ours you come to realize that you may have to go a little farther to get to some of the the things you'd like to obtain or learn. And that includes getting up at odd hours to participate in an event like the one you're suggesting. If it's a one time thing it could be something people could plan for and work around. It might be different if it was a regular, weekly class or something. So I think it would be best to try and make it available live in the time zone you think you'll find the greatest number of customers and then offer it in a delayed or recorded format for those who can't make that. Overall a cool idea!

If it were just a single workshop, then I'd make it regular. But I'm thinking of a couple of days or a whole week of events say, once a year or once every six months. It depends on how much or little to offer in one go. A bunch of workshops, plus a forum/speech and a performance may be good for a weekend for instance. I'd think that if it can be done on a weekend it would work out for most people's timezones. Ie. it may start on Friday night my time, which for Americans would be Thursday morning. But by the time Americans are on Friday, it's Saturday here, etc. So it would be only a small amount of stuff missed out on by most people.

It would definitely have to be something that includes DVD or some other delayed viewing, if nothing else it makes for a good archive whether you're there for it or not. It could also work for people who don't attend at all: say if you find out about it after the fact, you could purchase a DVD set or the workshop notes anyway.

Sounds cool! I look forward to hearing more.

To answer your question about the juggling convent, yes it was a convention in Munich that had all the shows streamed live. The http://www.essentialmagicconference.com/ though was not only streamed but also had Q&A time and lotsa other stuff. They really had it all together including a lot of big names. FYI, In the circus arts, magic is where the money is. Magicians spend big. Jeff McBride for example charges $500USD per person for his master class lecture.

Anyway to quote Wayne World: "If you book them, they will come"

To answer your question about the juggling convent, yes it was a convention in Munich that had all the shows streamed live. The http://www.essentialmagicconference.com/ though was not only streamed but also had Q&A time and lotsa other stuff. They really had it all together including a lot of big names. FYI, In the circus arts, magic is where the money is. Magicians spend big. Jeff McBride for example charges $500USD per person for his master class lecture.

Anyway to quote Wayne World: "If you book them, they will come"

Ok yeah, see I'm thinking this festival or whatever it is would be entirely virtual. An actual face-to-face conference that's then streamed is too much work/money for me to set up. Although I think that would be an awesome way to do it if I could arrange it.

I've had a few ideas of how to approach this, and for the most part can figure out a basic program that could be easily created. Outside of finding a suitable methodology/website to use to stream the event, one thing I'm stuck on is time: what would be a suitable amount of time for a live workshop. I'd like something in-depth (personally I feel one hour is not enough time to go into lots of detail), but can see how spending 2 or 3 hours sitting at the computer would not work for most people. Especially if the event crosses a number of days.

Is a one-hour session enough? Too much? Too little? I'd also think of sticking breaks in between, so that each session doesn't run into each other but instead acts as an individual event within the festival. Or maybe run two things after another, but no more.

... I really think that with a little bit of research and organisation I could get this happening.

I think  you might be right that anything more then an hour may be a bit much for many folks to spend in front of the computer. Then again it would be nice if the presenter had the time to allow for an extended period if the audience had a lot of questions.

Allowing for breaks in between may not be that hard to do. In fact depending on where your guest speakers are located it may be a necessity. Again it comes back to the whole timezone thing.

One thing I just thought about is the fact that with a normal conference you can actually have more then one workshop going on at a time.  Where you thinking that may be the case with this?  I guess I am thinking the terms of BlogTV. You might need more then one account set up for this or be linking up with folks who already have an account like Daryl.  Kind of just thinking out loud here.

Since posting last I've looked at a lot of webinar sites. There are a number of good packages that do exactly what's needed, from chat, to video conferencing, uploading of materials, notification systems etc. One thing that I haven't worked out yet is if they allow multiple events. It may be that one of them does (there's a product from Adobe), and first I'm going to give all of them a trial to see how they work. Happily though, the technology isn't as hard to find as I thought it would be. The main issue is going to be cost, as all of them require at least a monthly fee (many do offer fees per minute, like calling toll numbers, but it works out cheaper/easier to do monthly or yearly subscriptions). All of the ones I've looked at require no software installs on behalf of the attendees, just a login, which would be something necessary no matter what site I ended up using. Also the same for presenters; they just need to login and you can pass over 'control' like you can on BlogTv. Many of them have behind-the-scenes stuff too, like controlling Q&A sessions, out-of-session chat for private stuff, recording and playback of events, or even preparation 'rooms' for presenters to practice.

I do think as much as possible I'd like something that allows many events at the same time, but unless I find something suitable I'd stick with a few basic events. I have a vague program in mind, and if it's single-events only then maybe a festival theme would help create a good line-up of presenters.

I do agree that one hour might not be long enough, but at this point flexibility on time is also dependant on how these webinar sites work. It may be that you could extend an event, but have to put a time limit on it, or if it's a one-event-at-a-time system you may not have a choice when to kick off a presenter.

The main problem outside of organisation/technology is also what to program. It's so hard to pick a few things that might fit with people's interests. I have the idea that a workshop on performance as well as building would be good, along with marketing, scriptwriting and technical production (sound, lighting, etc). It'd be great to have a couple of evening performances, but along with that, I like the idea of having short "insider tours" of people's studios/workshop spaces, a discussion panel... and one more thing: a special guest speaker, someone who is perhaps well-known, who could do a speech and a Q&A session. That sounds like a lot, but I figure I could schedule it all in easily over four days (Fri eve, Sat, Sun, Mon eve), especially if I can do multiple events.

Actually, looking at the technology available out there, it may be easier than I thought to get this going. It just requires some presenters willing to participate.

Wow, this is annoying. I realised that I had previously discussed that potential project about archival materials before: in 2008.

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?topic=3260.new;topicseen#new

Sigh... I think it's about time I tell my friend to get off the pot.

I´m in. Go for it.