Inside the Launch of VENN 24/7 Gaming-Lifestyle Network in the Midst of the Pandemic New network launches today out of L.A. studios; state-of-the-art NYC facility still on the horizon By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - 3:52 pm
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Last September, when gaming-industry stalwarts Ariel Horn and Ben Kusin announced VENN (the Video Game Entertainment and News Network), they laid out an aggressive timeline to launch the 24/7 gaming, esports, and entertainment network in the third quarter of this year. However, when videogame play and esports viewership began to skyrocket during quarantine, VENN's launch date was moved up three months to capitalize on this growing number of eyeballs. Today, the network launches with 21 hours of original programming per week and big plans for the future.
VENN's Scott Gillies (right) and James Lee inside the network's L.A. studio
Despite one of the most aggressive network-launch timelines in recent memory, CTO Scott Gillies and SVP, Real Estate and Facilities, James Lee were able essentially to create a 24/7 linear-network operation from scratch at Vista Studios in Los Angeles in a matter of months.
I've been building broadcast facilities for 30 years, says Lee, and I've never seen a full network launched as quickly as we're launching. But it certainly doesn't look like it was just cranked out; it looks as good as the best [original programming] out there right now. I think, when people turn this on, they are going to be blown away. There's no one out there that's putting out the kind of content out that we're going to be putting out.
From NYC to L.A.: How VENN Pivoted Its Plans on the Fly The VENN studio at Vista Studios came together in a matter of months.
When Lee joined the company in November 2019, VENN planned to launch dual live studios in New York and Los Angeles, with New York serving as the flagship location and content-production hub. His team secured an 11,000-sq.-ft. footprint on the second floor of 3 World Trade Center, where VENN planned to build a state-of-the-art, IP-based 4K production facility geared toward gaming and esports-centric content. However, just two weeks before construction on the new studios was to have started, New York City was shut down by the pandemic.
We had to put that on hold, says Lee, and everyone moved into work-from-home mode and started to try to figure out how we were going to move forward.
Not to be deterred, he and Gillies had already set their sights on building a smaller, talk-show studio at Vista Studios in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, in addition to the NYC facility. With the 3 World Trade Center studio on hold, they shifted their focus west.
VENN's main studio features more than 1000 sq. ft of LED
The plan originally was to launch in L.A. and New York at the same time - and then COVID hit, says Gillies. Fortuitously, James and I had already come out to Vista Studios, where we were looking for a smaller studio space here in town. It really became clear that this was far away the best facility on the west side of L.A. - an unbelievable location, amazing stage footprint, and great infrastructure and technology.
With plans to move ahead with an initial launch out of Vista Studios in place, VENN announced in early March that it would be moving up its debut from the fall to July to reach the growing audience for gaming and esports content during the pandemic.
Ariel and Ben had the vision of pivoting the whole [operation] and launching a beta version [of the network] out of L.A. so we could turn this on as quickly as possible, says Lee. We pretty much did everything to make that happen between mid April and now. It was an insanely fast timeline.
LED Galore: Inside VENN's Main Studio at Vista
Vista Studios, which opened in 2017, was already well-equipped for VENN's needs with the latest technology and a sprawling footprint. Vista has a total of four stages onsite, and VENN has taken over the largest: a 6,000-sq.-ft. studio with a 19-ft. lighting grid, an elephant-door truck bay for easy load-in, and a dedicated production-control room (PCR).
VENN's main studio has multiple stages to serve news, talk, and game shows.
Originally, we wanted to do a fully 4K, IP plant, and that's still our plan for New York, says Gillies. This [Vista] plant is capable of 4K, but, in order to get things rolling as quickly as possible, we opted to launch at 60p (59.94). Thankfully, they have a 3G-capable router and very capable switcher, so we were able to move forward with that right away.
VENN's Studio One at Vista has been outfitted with more than 1,000 sq. ft. and 30 million pixels of LED walls, as well as floors composed of D3 NVIEW UHD 1.5 million-pixel-pitch panels. Designed by Devlin Design Group, the studio was designed to be ultra-flexible to accommodate a mix of talk shows, news shows, game shows, and variety shows, as well as live music performances in the same footprint.
From day one, we knew we wanted as much LED as possible because we need to have as flexible a space as possible, says Lee. We can change from a news set to a five-person gaming set in a matter of half an hour. So, when you're looking at the Grey Area, which is a talk show, versus The Download, which is more of a news show, they will actually be in the same exact spot, but you will never know it's the same studio.
Vista Studio Infrastructure: Inside the Control Room
Inside the VENN's control room in L.A.
Although VENN made some adjustments and additions to the equipment complement, the studio largely deploys the technology already integrated by Vista Studios. This includes Ikegami cameras, a Grass Valley Kahuna production switcher and Sirius video router, and Evertz DreamCatche
