TD Ameritrade Network

Replacing a live event with a virtual experience

TD Ameritrade provides its customers with educational events around the country called Market Drives. Each of these events draws several hundreds to a thousand people. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, TD Ameritrade had to cancel four of Market Drive events. To fill this void, Broadcast Management Group (BMG) proposed replacing upcoming Market Drive events with virtual Town Halls events. TD Ameritrade Network (TDAN) agreed, and asked BMG to produce the first event in six days. On Saturday, April 4th, 2020, BMG produced an incredibly successful, four-hour-long, live Town Hall for TDAN at their Chicago Studio. BMG created all of the show graphics, a complete virtual set, and also configured six remote locations. After the success of this event, on May 30^th BMG produced the second virtual live event.

Brainstorm has been TD Ameritrade’s trusted virtual set solution over the past three years. So naturally, the Brainstorm Suite was chosen to design, build, and broadcast the virtual environment.

BMG’s creative services team developed a 4-hour live town hall featuring a host, social media correspondent, and six contributors. Both the host and some correspondent were shot in front of a green screen using Brainstorm virtual set technology. The six contributors were integrated into the live program using at-home REMI kits that were designed and engineered by Broadcast Management Group’s system integration division. In order to add a layer of engagement with at-home viewers, the program integrated live questions via Twitter and Facebook as well as pre-submitted video questions. BMG’s creative division developed the show format, show rundown, designed all virtual sets, and created all show graphics for the town hall.

BMG used one Infinity Set renderer together with a traditional control room to cut the show. Studio camera feeds were Panasonic AW-UE150 PTZ cameras, and the remote feeds were brought in utilizing LiveU.

To know more about this project, please download the case study.