A stage with two audiences

The ECP Green Summit for Expresso

On 7 October we ran the livestream of the ECP Green Summit for Expresso at the Portugal Pavilion in Lisbon, in a room with the stage in the middle and an audience on each side. We brought six cameras, three for each side, and a second mix just for the room's screen.

24 October 2026Cláudio Contracampo

The auditorium at the Portugal Pavilion was not designed for television. The stage sits in the middle and the seats rise on both sides, facing each other, like a small arena. Whoever is speaking turns left, then right, and always spends part of the time with their back to someone, which is friendly in the room and a problem on a live stream. That is what Rafael Reigota brought back from his visit on 11 September, along with the set and lighting design, and that is why we took six PTZ cameras and one more operator than we would take to a conference with a single front.

On Wednesday 7 October, thirty speakers from the ECP Green Summit passed across that stage, from nine in the morning to six in the evening, live on the Facebook page of Expresso, the Portuguese weekly. Expresso was media partner of the event, which closed the Ecoceramics and Crystal of Portugal agenda, and brought us in for the livestream. The speakers, who were not to blame for the architecture in the slightest, spent the day dividing themselves between the two banks of seats.

The Portugal Pavilion auditorium seen from the balcony, with the wooden stage in the middle and yellow seats on both sides — The room from the balcony, on the September visit: the stage in the middle and an audience on each side.

Three cameras on each side

The six PTZs went three to each audience. On each side, two at the top of the seating and the third down by the stage. They reached the control room over NDI, into vMix, and our feed to the room's screen went out the same way; the event graphics came in over SDI. The screen and the shape of the stage left few places to put a camera, and the six went where they fitted, like chairs at a wedding arranged around the pillars of the hall.

One of the audiences seen from the stage, with stepped yellow seats and the balcony above — One of the two audiences, seen from the stage in September. Two cameras went at the top of each.

The rig took a whole day. On air, each operator took one side: Bruno Amaral had one audience, Miguel Marques the other, each with his own multiview, both linked by intercom to Rafael, who was directing.

Light for the cameras and for the speakers

The room has little natural light, and the lighting belonged to another AV team. For the cameras, the more light on stage the better. The lighting technician had to think about thirty people who would spend the day looking at both banks of seats without being dazzled. We reached a balance, like two neighbours agreeing on the volume of a party, between the light that worked for the cameras and the light he judged bearable for whoever was on stage.

A screen that could see itself

The room's screen took shots from our cameras, and some of those cameras had the screen itself in frame. If one of those shots went up there, the room would see the picture inside the picture, repeating like a tunnel, the way everyone has seen it after pointing a webcam at their own monitor. So we built a second mix, for the screen only, which never took a shot with the screen in it. The Facebook stream had its own direction, and the room's screen had its own, with its own rules.

The auditorium on the day, with both audiences seated, a panel on stage and, on the screen above, a close-up of one of the speakers — The room on the day, with both audiences seated, the energy debate on stage and a shot from our cameras on the screen. Photo by José Fonseca Fernandes, Expresso.

Crossing the line

With cameras on both sides of the stage, cutting from one side to the other crosses the line: someone looking left is suddenly looking right, and the viewer loses track of who is talking to whom. Rafael went through a wide shot between two cuts, so the jump would not show. Bruno tells me there was no moment harder than the others. It was like that all day, one cut at a time, from nine to six.

In the debates, the speakers stood side-on to both audiences, and the stream relied mostly on the cameras by the stage, which caught them head-on.

Four people on stage among faceted white plinths, in a conversation about skills and training — The conversation on skills and training. Photo by José Fonseca Fernandes, Expresso.

The video report

Alongside the livestream, we produced the video report that Expresso published with its article on the event, in Portuguese. Gonçalo Pardal shot it, Tânia Gaspar, a journalist, wrote the script, and Rafael handled post-production. The day's stream is still on Expresso's Facebook page.