Los Angeles company Live Media Group helps bring concerts to the Web

Milwaukee’s Summerfest music festival draws an audience of about 900,000 people a year. But now it’s looking to expand its audience to people watching away from the crowds and on their couches.

Summerfest has partnered with the Los Angeles company Live Media Group to live-stream the festival on the Web so that viewers at home can see headliners such as Kings of Leon, Linkin Park and Florida Georgia Line perform.

Music festivals have previously been available to online viewers through platforms such as YouTube and Ustream. But Live Media Group -- which does the behind-the-scenes work on streamed events -- is hoping music fans will flock to the see the shows through its app, with “grid view” technology that allows users to preview videos of multiple performances and choose which one to watch.

“The frustration was that, with music festivals, you’ve got four stages going on at once,” said LMG Chief Executive Brad Sexton, who founded the company in 2008. “The festivals and users wanted user control and multiple feeds throughout the experience.”

This isn’t the first time the company -- headquartered in Van Nuys with 23 full-time employees -- has been involved in the live music space. It has also produced the live streams for Live Nation and Yahoo’s yearlong concert series, with one show every day.

The shows in the 365 series included concerts by the likes of Aerosmith, Usher and Lady Gaga, though the companies have not said how many people watched the concerts.

To broadcast the shows, the company employs a crew of freelancers to do the camera and audio work. Producing the live stream for Summerfest will require 18 to 22 TV cameras, LMG said.

LMG started as a production company working with Hollywood movie studios on their film events. Recently, it worked on the live stream of the Independent Spirit Awards red carpet and the “Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1” premiere.

It has also done previous work on music festivals including New Orleans Jazz Fest and Tortuga Music Festival.

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