Hot Trend: Live Event Captions

Written By Lovely de Leon

Do you love to turn on the captions when you watch a movie at home? Imagine turning on live captions at your event, so everyone in the room can read along with every word spoken through a microphone … yes, in real time!

We’re setting up a record number of open captioning systems this season, and it’s no wonder! This is one of the easiest ways to increase your event’s accessibility for folks with any type of hearing loss or language comprehension worries. It also helps folks who are slower auditory processors to get the most out of your stage program.

If you are interested in setting up captions at your event, you’ll need to pull together one or more A/V vendors, perhaps coordinate with your event venue, and (whenever possible) bring in a live captioner. Yes, AI captions are a thing … but why set yourself up for embarrassing and confusing typos, when you can bring in a live caption provider who will study your script in advance and be ready with correctly spelled names, acronyms and special vocabulary to help tell your story?

It can be a little extra legwork, but it all feels worthwhile when you see the added engagement with your audience. For inspo, here are some examples from Synchronicity’s Spring season.

Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai'i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, "Drinks, Dissent and Defiance” Event 2025 at Seattle Center’s Fisher Pavilion. Captions were provided by a live remote captioner and displayed on multiple monitors. Photo by: Danny Ngan

A speaker onstage at the podium delivers her speech while a remote CART captioner provides real-time captions. Captions were shown as a “lower third” overlay on a live camera feed. Ignite Worldwide’s Spring Gala at the Amazon Meeting Center. Photo By: Felix Aguilar

Three women seated on stage discuss with each other with microphones on stands while guests are on the foreground listening. There is also a huge projector monitor behind the speakers that the guests can view, CART Captions are used.

Landesa’s Seed the Change 2025 at Town Hall Seattle. Onsite CART Captions were projected center stage, as a “lower third” addition to the slideshow. Photo By: Michael B. Maine

A panel of 4 nonprofit event experts discuss on stage while CART Captions are seen on both monitors for guests to read.

Nonprofit event experts (our own Alex Martin is third from left!) in a panel discussion at the Nonprofit Events Mini-Con 2025, at Block 41. Captions are seen as “lower thirds” on two projection screens for guests to read. Photo by: Alan Alabastro

#SynchronicityEvents #NonprofitEvents #EventLiveCaptions #eventplanning #eventprofs #seattleevents #teamsynchronicity

Lovely de Leon
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