A few examples of the problems with live streams

Here's a few examples of the problems I encounter putting together live streaming schedules, and making sure everybody is well informed about what shows will (and will not) be shown online.

Tsumori Chisato

I was sent a provisional schedule by My Beautiful Dressing which had Tsumori Chisato shown as live streaming. My daily check of their website didn't have the show listed, so I removed it and scheduled tweets explaining that it looked unlikely it would be live streaming.


My Beautiful Dressing then tweeted an Instagram picture on the morning of the show advertising the show as live streaming, so it was added back onto our schedules, reminder tweets were scheduled and I advertised the fact it would now be live streaming.

However, it still didn't appear on the site. Further digging revealed that it was not streaming due to broadband restrictions at the venue, and that the tweet advertising the show was a scheduled Instagram post that slipped the net. So once again, I had to remove it from our schedules and make sure the scheduled tweets were all deleted.

John Galliano

John Galliano live streamed for the first time a few seasons ago on his Facebook page. The next season it was on his website. Then the season after he didn't live stream at all. This season he's live streaming on My Beautiful Dressing. On all the Paris schedules I've seen, it's listed as having a 5pm start time, however on MBD it's shown as 7.30pm. I'm living in Dubai at the moment, so there's the potential I will have to stay up until midnight to see what happens so that I can make sure people are informed as to when Galliano live streams.


Gosia Baczynska

Turns out Gosia Baczynska was live streaming. They hadn't advertised it on their website or Facebook pages, and in fact it was an independent live stream that was buried away on a website I've never heard of before and that didn't come up on any of the Google searches I did.


I discovered that it was live streaming when I was out having dinner at 10.30pm local time. I quickly scheduled reminder tweets to try my best to inform CatwalkLive.TV followers.



Not everybody was satisfied with this, but I did everything I could to make sure people were aware of this new addition to the schedule. Unfortunately I have to draw the line at updating the website when I'm out with friends.

Kenzo

This is a frequent example of the vaguarities of live streaming. Kenzo don't normally live stream, but have done in the past. In SS12 they live streamed on their website, and last season they streamed on Youtube. This season their website has this image on their homepage:



It's hard to know whether 'join us here' means there will be a live stream, plus they'll have Twitter and Instagram coverage, or whether they mean 'join us here' for the Twitter and Instagram coverage. 

Dozens of designers post similar images with the date and time of their show, but don't indicate whether they mean they're live streaming the show or not. I can't assume they are because people literally plan their lives around watching live streams of their favourite designers. I can't assume they're not because then people will be equally disappointed should they miss the show.

The above examples are a cross-section of the problems I have encountered in the last couple of days. Understand that CatwalkLive.TV covers the whole of fashion month and hopefully you'll understand why now and again there are inaccuracies in the schedules.

Paris is the worst week I cover due to the fact so few shows live stream which means there is a lot more digging to be done to find designers that are showing online. Also if a designer streamed last season, it's no guarantee they'll be streaming again this season.

This season I have made many sacrifices to make sure CatwalkLive is as accurate as possible. I will be taking next season off so that I can enjoy fashion month again. CatwalkLive is a result of my passion of following fashion, and the irony is that since I launched the site, I have less time than ever to follow the shows.

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