The Fabric of Global Hybrid and Virtual Live Events: MMG Events Connects 26 Countries Smoothly With NDI

Delivering a large-scale event with a global footprint is no small feat. This was the challenge for MMG Events when tasked with producing a four-day diversity and inclusion festival for the insurance sector spanning 26 countries and reaching an audience of over 60,000. Using NDI technology at the core of their setup, MMG delivered a highly reliable, flexible, and innovative solution that exceeded expectations.

Challenge

Ryan Majchrowski, CEO of MMG Events, faced an extraordinary task: producing 150 hybrid and virtual sessions that spanned four days and ran around the clock. Each session needed to be live-streamed across six concurrent channels and made available on-demand within minutes. Coordinating AV teams across 26 countries required rigorous signal testing and onboarding to ensure seamless integration of hybrid and virtual components.

Adding to this complexity, MMG needed to prepare over 600 presenters for their virtual appearances, ensuring they were familiar with the environment and technology. With an audience of more than 60,000 attendees, the event demanded flawless reliability, stable connectivity, and robust redundancy to mitigate potential disruptions.

“Live only happens once — redundancy is key,” emphasized Ryan. This principle guided MMG Events’ approach to ensuring every layer of the production was secure, scalable, and adaptable to the demands of such a dynamic event.

Solution

To overcome the event’s multifaceted challenges, MMG Events implemented a meticulously designed workflow with NDI technology at its core. The preparation phase included months of planning and extensive onboarding programs for AV teams and presenters. Using video content and live testing sessions, MMG ensured all signal flows were proven and optimized well in advance of the event dates.

Using the Cvent platform as an endpoint allowed all live sessions to be available instantly. MMG Events also brought in a full edit team working in the background to overwrite the recordings with fully edited content at a very fast pace.  

During the event, MMG deployed over 200 NDI signals across their network. This setup provided exceptional flexibility, allowing signals to be redirected anywhere within the studio. Monitoring was centralized using NDI Studio Monitor, combined with:

• Atomos Shogun screens to display extended desktops.
• BirdDog Flex with Atomos Ninja to act as a reference monitor to ensure accurate processing.

Proactive monitoring allowed the project manager to follow all onboarding, watch streams go live, and identify and address technical issues before they could disrupt the live event.

Signal transmission from the hybrid London hub featured multiple layers of redundancy:

• Primary transmission: Atomos Shogun over cloud-based SRT.
• Backup path: Microsoft Teams for secondary transmission.
• Failover system: Atomos devices pre-configured with RTMP stream info to take over streaming in case of issues.

The team also used Atomos Ninja Ultra devices to encode and pass through NDI signals. This approach allowed real-time validation of signal quality while ensuring smooth processing. Combined with triple-layer backups for internet and power, MMG built a rock-solid production environment capable of handling any challenge.

This workflow demonstrated how NDI can enhance flexible products. Atomos monitors, such as those from the Ninja and Shogun lines, are typically used in filmmaking studios. However, they can also function as NDI encoders or decoders, confidence monitors, or even visual signal testers. These monitors were well-equipped to meet MMG’s specific requirements for a live stream of this scale.

We love working on the R&D with Atomos Products and hope many more see the capability of their products in new ways!

Ryan Majchrowski, CEO of MMG Events

An NDI-based Workflow

With over 200 NDI signals in use, the setup offered unmatched flexibility and redundancy:

• Monitoring and control: NDI Studio Monitor, Shogun Screens, and BirdDog Flex devices allowed the MMG team to monitor all incoming signals, detect issues proactively, and ensure smooth stream transitions.
• Redundancy at every level: The system incorporated triple-layer backups for signal processing, internet connectivity, and power. Atomos Shogun devices served as backup RTMP encoders to ensure seamless failover streaming when needed.
• Versatile signal inputs: MMG leveraged tools like vMix, NDI Webcam Input, and Atomos Ninja Ultra to encode and process NDI signals.

Outcome

The event concluded with outstanding success. Of the 150 sessions produced, only two encountered minor technical issues, both of which were resolved within seconds. All live sessions were made available for on-demand viewing within minutes, ensuring attendees could access content without delay.

Client feedback underscored MMG’s exceptional delivery: “Our experience with MMG was seamless from start to finish. MMG was extremely organized and proactive, providing clear directions and prompt support throughout. Their responsiveness made a significant difference in our collaboration.”

MMG were a pleasure to work with throughout. Ryan goes above and beyond to collaborate on as many areas of the event as possible. Their expertise is always concise and actionable, making executing such a large-scale event like this a smooth experience.

Shannon Donnelly, Senior Account Manager at Cvent

In addition to the glowing endorsements, MMG’s approach delivered measurable benefits:

• Redundancy-driven reliability: Triple-layer backups for power, internet, and signal paths ensured uninterrupted performance.
• Near-perfect uptime: Only two sessions faced minor issues, both resolved in seconds.
• Rapid turnaround: On-demand content was available within minutes of each session’s conclusion.

NDI is one of the most significant technology changes in the last decade for AV production. It’s a game-changer for delivering seamless, global events.

Ryan Majchrowski, CEO of MMG Events