Tik Tok In The Mix
- Jared Pietrzak
- Mar 15, 2024
- 2 min read
With over 33.5 unique viewers, TikTok In The Mix broke the record for the biggest live event to take place on TikTok. The event took place at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona and featured performances from major artists like Cardi B, Niall Horan, Anitta, and Charlie Puth. In The Mix highlighted TikTok's commitment to bringing its "For You" feed to life and creating an immersive experience that reflects the platform's dynamic blend of music, creativity, and community. TV Tech provided technical drafting and advisory services to Done and Dusted on creating one of the largest Ultra-HD streaming projects ever done.
The project required endpoints on traditional HD streaming platforms, Hulu and Disney Plus, but also required a maximum quality vertical feed to users watching from the TikTok mobile app. It’s all too common that productions settle for HD capture and switching, then do a “crop and upscale” to account for mobile endpoints as an afterthought. As a fundamental element of this event, we designed a state of the art UHD switching system to take full resolution streams from all eighteen cameras.
The system output was an unprecedented 3 separate line cuts, consisting of A UHD 16:9 Feed, a Vertical Feed, and an additional feed for the LED wall scenic elements. Multiple directors handled individual sub feeds, with separate teams for the key on stage music elements, and to capture the interstitial audience interactions. Additionally, a record for each feed was routed to a 5 person edit team enabling them to cut social media elements, and highlight reels in real time. Bill Eastham who led the fiber infrastructure team said “it is the largest fiber project I’ve ever done, bigger than the Super Bowl or NBA Championships”
With over 18,000 attendees in person at Sloan Park, extensive power infrastructure had to be brought in to convert the ballpark into a concert venue. We started by coordinating with the City of Mesa to have extra power available and fed into the venue at showtime. We also brought in four 42-ton generators, and four equivalent backup batteries to build multiple zones, each with thousands of amps of redundant power.
We’re very proud we were able to provide a robust technical design to support an event of this caliber. Thank you to TikTok and our client Done and Dusted.
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TV Tech Select Credits:
Brett Dicus served as technical advisor and draftsman for this event.