The Arts Club of Chicago, founded in 1916, is a leading cultural institution in Chicago, Illinois, recognized for its commitment to promoting and exhibiting contemporary and avant-garde art. Over the years, it has been a vital meeting point for the local and international art community.
The club organizes various cultural events, including art exhibitions, lectures, presentations, and social events. Recently, the club introduced "Chotin': Curatorial Practices at the Edge," an event in which Gerardo Mosquera, a distinguished curator and critic, shared his reflections on Latin American art and curatorial practices. We were honored to provide live captioning for his 2-hour speech.
Practical tips for providing subtitles at live events:
Including simultaneous subtitles in face-to-face events is an increasingly relevant practice regarding accessibility and inclusive communication. From our experience, we tell you how it is possible to obtain a remote subtitling service in a 100% face-to-face event and some considerations to implement live subtitling services effectively anywhere in the world.
- Access the event's audio: through a remote connection between Chicago and Bogota, we used the Zoom videoconferencing platform to access the talk's content.
- Have a translation provider or partner: in our case, we had an excellent team of simultaneous interpreters who provided us with the audio translated into Spanish in real-time.
- Have a platform that provides the transcript: we send the event production a link containing the transcript in Spanish so they can add it or incorporate it into the main screen in place of the event.
- Testing: It is essential to coordinate with the event production team to review and ensure that all technical aspects are working correctly before the start of the event. Subtitles must be legible on the screens at the site.
- Minute-by-minute tracking: with our transcription method, stenotyping, we can achieve highly accurate and simultaneous subtitling, ensuring an optimal experience from start to finish for viewers. This staffed stenotyping system still produces better results than automated or artificial intelligence transcription systems.
