This year we were back at Radio City Music Hall for the Garden of Dreams Talent Show, the eighth time Varto Technologies has been part of this event. It is one we look forward to every year.
The show is produced and directed by Dutch Productions. Stephen De Groot and his team work directly with MSG, direct the program, and build the creative and visual elements that make the night feel as big as it does. Varto comes in through Dutch Productions to handle the live streaming and the in-house production technology. We capture the performances, feed the screens in the house, and run the stream going out to everyone watching from home.
The Talent Show took the Great Stage on May 26, 2026, with more than 150 young people from across the Tri-State area performing in front of a full house. The Garden of Dreams Foundation works with kids who are facing serious challenges and gives them a stage most performers never get near. On a night like that, the technology has one job, which is to stay out of the way so nobody in the room or at home is thinking about it. Pulling that off takes a lot of planning. msgentertainment
Here is what we ran for the 2026 show. Seven cameras into a live switch, feeding a large LED wall and two side screens in the house. Two TriCaster TC2 Elite systems at the core, one primary and one backup, with an AJA KUMO router handling signal routing and HyperDeck recorders capturing the program. A Stream Deck drove our production macros so the cues stayed fast and consistent. For distribution we used a LiveU LU300S as the final encoder into Restream, sending the show to Facebook and YouTube at the same time. A Peplink unit handled bonded cellular for connectivity, and a Netgear M4250 AV switch carried NDI and Dante across the production network.
The gear is not the point on its own. What matters is that all of it has to hold together live, in a full house, with no second take. That is the work we do whether the room is Radio City Music Hall, a house of worship, a corporate stage, or a school auditorium.
Thanks to Stephen De Groot and Dutch Productions for bringing us back again, and to the Garden of Dreams Foundation for the work they do all year. Eight shows in, it still means something to be part of it.
Watch the 2026 Talent Show: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZCcJY6s09s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1LETt8QnsT/