Every school has the same handful of events each year that families would gladly pay to watch from a distance. Senior concerts, winter plays, sports days, graduation ceremonies, prize-givings. Parents working abroad, grandparents who cannot travel, and alumni who want to see the next generation perform are all an audience with a real willingness to pay. PassCast gives the school a clean way to charge for that access without committing to an enterprise platform contract or asking the IT teacher to build something in-house.
The events that work
Schools using PassCast typically pick the two or three events a year that already draw a strong parent audience and add a livestream ticket option on top of the in-person experience. The Christmas concert is a near-universal starting point. Senior musicals, debutante balls, sports finals, prize nights, and graduation ceremonies follow. Boarding schools have an obvious additional use case in major fixtures and end-of-term events where the family base is naturally distant.
The economics work even at modest volumes. A school selling fifty livestream tickets at ten pounds for a winter concert keeps four hundred pounds after the platform fee, with no setup cost and no monthly commitment. A school with a strong alumni network at a milestone event regularly sells two to three hundred tickets.
Setup and approvals
A staff member signs the school up on the Community tier, creates an event page with the date, time, and ticket price, and gets approval from PassCast within a working day. From that point on, every event the school runs reuses the same setup. Parents are emailed the link, they buy a ticket through Stripe with a card or Apple Pay or Google Pay, and they watch on any device.
Safeguarding is taken seriously. Each ticket is single-device, so a paid stream cannot be shared on social media. The school controls who is featured on camera and can restrict the replay window to as short as twenty-four hours if needed. PassCast is GDPR-compliant and the platform does not retain viewer email addresses for marketing purposes.
Reference customer
Ulster Schools GAA was PassCast's first paying customer and uses the platform for school-level GAA matches across Ulster. Their fully branded site is live at tv.ulsterschoolsgaa.com. A school looking at PassCast can see exactly what a finished implementation looks like before committing.
See it in action
Browse live and upcoming events from organisations already using PassCast on the Community Hub.
Visit the Community HubFrequently asked questions
How much does it cost a school to live stream an event with PassCast?
PassCast is free to sign up on the Community tier. The school pays nothing until parents buy tickets. The platform takes 20% of ticket revenue and the school keeps 80%. There is no monthly fee, no setup fee, and no minimum number of events.
Is it appropriate to charge for a school concert livestream?
Most schools already charge admission for in-person events such as concerts and senior musicals. A livestream ticket is the same idea applied to remote viewers. A typical livestream ticket sits between £5 and £15, lower than the in-person ticket because the experience is different. Families abroad almost always prefer paying for a clean broadcast over a free shaky phone stream from the back of the hall.
Can we keep the stream private to ticket holders only?
Yes. PassCast streams are protected by signed playback URLs, single-device enforcement per ticket, and a paywall. A ticket cannot be casually shared on WhatsApp or social media because the stream will only play for the device that bought it.
What about safeguarding for events involving children?
The school controls the camera, the framing, and the content of the stream. PassCast does not record anything the school does not stream itself. Replay windows can be set as short as 24 hours. The school can revoke access to a replay at any time. Names of children should not appear on event pages unless parental consent has been given.
How do parents abroad pay?
Stripe handles international card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and most local payment methods automatically. Parents in any country with internet access and a card can buy a ticket. The school does not need to do anything to enable international sales.
Do we need any technical knowledge to live stream a concert?
A USB camera, a laptop, and a copy of OBS Studio (free) is enough to run a single-camera stream. Schools running a more polished broadcast typically use a small video mixer with two or three cameras. PassCast provides a stream key and the school points the encoder at it. Any IT teacher or AV-experienced parent volunteer can set this up in an afternoon.
Can alumni or grandparents who do not live near the school still buy tickets?
Yes. PassCast tickets are sold through a public event page with a shareable link. The school simply emails or posts the link in its parent newsletter and on its social channels. Anyone with the link and a card can buy a ticket from anywhere in the world.
Set up a branded streaming page for your school
Get in touch about a Channel-tier setup with your own domain at tv.yourschool.ie, parent-facing branding, and a single home for every event in the school calendar. Most schools are live within two weeks of the first conversation.
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