How to offer multilingual interpretation at an event
The four ways to make an event understood in several languages, with what each costs and where each fails.
- real options
- 4real options
- interpreters per language in a booth
- 2interpreters per language in a booth
- languages in the automatic option
- 58languages in the automatic option
- per-attendee charge
- 0per-attendee charge
The four ways to solve it, and what each costs
- A booth with human interpreters: the best quality and the most expensive. Two interpreters per language, plus booth, bodypacks and receivers.
- Consecutive interpretation: the speaker stops and somebody translates. No equipment, but it doubles the length.
- Live automatic captions and translation: each attendee picks a language on their phone. Cost is per event hour.
- Doing nothing: the default option. People who do not speak the language attend, but do not participate.
How to decide which you need
Is legal or diplomatic nuance at stake?
If a badly chosen word has contractual consequences, you need a human interpreter.
How many languages, really?
With one or two, human interpretation is viable. From the third on, cost grows in a straight line.
Is anyone hard of hearing?
Interpretation does not solve hearing access. Captions do.
Will it be recorded?
You will need captions anyway. Producing them live also serves during the event.
What the automatic option needs on site
A clean audio feed
The same one already going to recording. It determines quality more than the system does.
A screen or a video signal
For the room captions, composited or projected separately.
A code and a QR
So each attendee opens it on their phone. Print it, do not only project it.
Somebody to press the button
And, if the event deserves it, somebody watching the proper nouns.
Mistakes that keep repeating
Projecting the QR only at the start
People arrive late. The code has to be visible while the audience files in.
Forgetting the Wi-Fi
At a conference the access point fails before anything else.
Not loading the vocabulary
Names, acronyms and brands transcribe badly if nobody typed them first. Ten minutes.
Measuring access by the invoice
Having a system does not mean it was used. Ask for the devices and languages report.
Where SCAPTION fits
In the automatic option
Captions come out inside your video signal over NDI with a real alpha channel.
No per-attendee or per-language cost
Which is what gets the third language approved.
With storage in Europe
Audio transcribed in the EU by default for accounts in Europe, and no transcript of the live path stored anywhere.
With the price published
You can budget without calling.
Accessibility
If you only need to caption what is spoken. Event Pro if you need to translate into other languages, which is the case this guide is about.
Frequently asked questions
What does a human interpreter cost?
It depends on the market and the language, but the rule the industry itself uses is two interpreters per language per day, because they need relief. That doubling usually decides the budget. We have a calculator to compare your specific case.
Is machine translation good enough?
For the spoken discourse of a conference, a training session or a council meeting, yes, and it improves every quarter. For a contract, a court hearing or a diplomatic negotiation, no. Anyone telling you it replaces a human in every case is selling you something.
How many languages can be offered at once?
Up to 12 in one event, from a catalogue of 58, with each attendee choosing their own. It does not have to be decided in advance or contracted per language.
Do receivers have to be handed out?
No. Each attendee uses their own phone and their own earphones, so there is no equipment to buy, charge, distribute or collect.
What about deaf attendees?
Captions in the spoken language cover much of the case. We do not offer sign language: if your event has a sign language interpreter, their window can be composited alongside the captions in the same video signal.
Other solutions
Try one hour free
One hour of captioning and translation on one microphone, no expiry, no card. Enough to prove it on your own rig before you pay.