The first time I heard Marc Geiger (my friend and WME Head of Music) pitch the idea behind Mixhalo, I was skeptical, but intrigued.
“What if you could stream a live concert directly from the soundboard to your phone using your own headphones?” Um, yes please!
But how is that even possible? What about latency, weak cell signals and non-existent WiFi?
“Trust me, they figured it all out,” he said.
They had, in fact, taken a dream of democratizing music from concept to a sophisticated wireless technology proven across a series of exciting pilots. After hearing it, the thought rattled around my head for months, and it eventually struck me that the magic they’d created for music could also apply for sports, or Broadway, or conferences; really to any live event.
I hadn’t been so excited about a technology idea for quite some time; the potential is massive.
- Imagine a world where you no longer need expensive PA systems to host large scale events.
- Imagine play-by-play in stadiums without having to hold a transistor radio to your ear like your grandfather did.
- Imagine plugging your favorite singer right into your ears from the nosebleed seats.
Turns out you can. Now. I dropped everything I was doing at the time, and threw myself into helping Mixhalo reach its potential. First? Closing Series A financing to kick into the next gear.
Plugging in.
With people logging more and more time online, we need live events more than ever to reconnect with the real world — and each other. Being part of large-scale shared experiences is one way to bring people back into the moment.
But even as live events are flourishing, the cost of producing them is increasing exponentially. As a result, prices are also increasing. How and where people are buying tickets is changing: eSports steals audience from mainstream sports; conferences are growing in number and by topic; Broadway has blockbuster turnout and extensive runs; streaming television is eating theatrical films; and music and festivals seek more and better immersive experiences.
The connective tissue among all of these is twofold: they’re experienced en masse and in-person, AND they’re driven by audio. The soundtrack of the event drives the experience — and with Mixhalo, the audience can now hear what they came for: unobstructed by crowd noise and without degradation from booming, distorted speakers.
You deserve better.
While the experience of getting together for events continues to draw us in, we’ve come to accept extremely low quality audio as the standard at many live events. Most of us don’t even realize what we’re missing. Think of HDTV. Before it, television looked fine. Bigger, flatter TVs made the “fine” even better.
Then came HDTV. The game changed and there was no turning back. Mixhalo is doing just that for audio at live events.
Founded by musicians used to the crystal-clear soundboard mix through their in-ear headphone monitors, Mixhalo was created to give that same pure sound to fans. And we wanted to do it right.
- Custom hardware: Because venue WiFi is often weak and cell connectivity spotty, we created our own custom hardware.
- No (additional) lines: With so many crowd control challenges in large groups, we also didn’t want people to have to buy or rent a device to get this experience. Or for our team or customers to have to collect them at an event’s end.
A whole new sound paradigm.
Mixhalo uses the devices people already have in their pockets, and relies on a headphone culture already well-established.
With proprietary tech that functionally turns WiFi into radio, we can go as big with sound as a venue wants, so at concerts and festivals, hearing music as crisply and cleanly as it is being played no longer requires the best seat in the house or the right wristband. The Mixhalo app plugs people right into the soundboard. In addition to improving overall sound, you can listen to different stages at a music festival without hoofing around between sets, or tune into a specific instrument or vocal mix from the band.
At live sporting events, Mixhalo has created a solution that will allow fans to listen to the play-by-play, home or away broadcasts; different language interpretations; sounds from the court, ice or field; players’ pump-up playlists; or any other channel the venue provides. Directly to your own phone, on a stable local network.
At conferences, whether you are working in the lobby and still trying to listen to the speakers, or trying to hear the session in a different room, Mixhalo has a solution. We also allow for up to 150 real-time translations of the audio for increasingly global audiences. No devices required.
Democratizing sound.
In the end, our mission is to democratize and elevate the live event audio experience, allowing every attendee the opportunity to experience high quality, real-time audio wherever they’re located. We have made it as easy for venue and event operators to deploy Mixhalo as it is for attendees to consume perfect sound.
For the first time ever, you don’t need to be close to the field, court or stage to hear what you came to hear, the way you want to hear it.
