Some of the shows we're proudest of had no production kit on site at all. The vision mixing, graphics, playback and encoding happened on powerful virtual machines in an AWS data centre, operated by an engineer at a desk two hundred miles away. This is cloud production, and it's become one of the most cost-effective ways to deliver a professional virtual event.
What a cloud gallery actually is
A GPU-equipped virtual machine (we use AWS instances) running production software — vMix in our case — exactly as it would run on a physical production PC. Sources come in over the internet: remote speakers via broadcast-quality calling, on-site cameras via SRT from a small encoder, pre-recorded content uploaded in advance. The operator connects to the machine over a low-latency remote desktop and drives the show. The programme output streams straight out of the data centre to the platform on a connection far faster than any venue line.
Why it works so well
The bandwidth problem inverts. Instead of pushing a heavy programme stream out of a venue, you only need to get individual sources in — and the data centre has effectively unlimited outbound capacity. Scaling is instant: a second machine for a second room is a few clicks, not a van. Crew can be anywhere: the best operator for your show doesn't need to be within travelling distance. Cost: instance hours are cheap compared with hiring, transporting and insuring physical production systems.
Where the humans are
Fully virtual events with remote speakers need nobody on site. Hybrid events still need people in the room — camera operators, a sound engineer, a floor manager — but the gallery can be in the cloud, with a compact "contribution kit" (a camera or two, an audio feed and an SRT encoder) sending the room to it. We've run multi-camera hybrid conferences this way with two people on site instead of six.
Latency and interaction
Remote desktop control adds a few frames; contribution links add a few hundred milliseconds. For a presenter in the room talking to a remote guest on a screen, the delay is comparable to a good video call and audiences don't notice. Where it matters — a live Q&A with the room — we design the interaction around it, as in any hybrid show.
Security
Machines are created for the event and destroyed afterwards. Access is by named user, over encrypted connections, with SRT streams encrypted end to end. No client content persists in the cloud beyond the event unless you ask us to keep it. For regulated clients we document the whole chain.
When you still want kit on site
Very large in-room audiences where the room screens are the priority; venues with no usable internet at all (though bonded cellular often solves that); shows with heavy on-site graphics interaction with an LED wall. In those cases the cloud gallery becomes a superb backup path rather than the primary.
What it costs
A cloud gallery for a show day typically runs a few hundred pounds in infrastructure plus the operator's day rate — often a third to a half of an equivalent on-site production. Our cost guide puts it in context.
We've been running cloud galleries since 2020 and built our own AWS routing and infrastructure for it — ask us about it for your next show.