Inexpensive/Easy Way to Stream Live Performances

["Hartung, Kris" <kris.hartung@hp.com>]

We touched on this topic a few days ago, when someone had asked about
being able to listen to each other loop over the internet, but I'd like
to bring it up again since I am getting more serious about making this
happen.  On September 1, I start playing at a new venue called the
Library Coffeehouse. It is an older house that was converted into a
coffeehouse, but they preserved all its various rooms and loaded them
with thousands of books. Hence, people can get their coffee or tea, and
roam around the rooms sitting on couches and chairs, etc. The venue also
has live music on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, which plays in one
room, and they pipe the sound into speakers in all the other rooms. It's
a really cool concept, and the best thing is that they have WI-FI
internet access in the venue.  

My goal at this venue is two-fold. First, I'm going to allows folks at
the venue, who are on their computers, to provide real-time feedback to
me and each other while I perform. I have a second laptop that I'll sit
next to my performance laptop, which will have my Yahoo chat room up and
running. I'll be able  to read the feedback while I play and respond to
it accordingly. I like this idea of making my performances interactive.
Second, I want to take it even further. I also want to allow others, not
at the venue, to access some tool or website and hear my performances,
also given the opportunity to provide feedback. That way the local
audience and virtual audience can interact together.   

Does anyone know of a cost effective way to share real-time performances
over the web?  I tried the voice feature of my Yahoo Chat room , and it
is atrocious.  I can hear the music, but it is very choppy and at a low
bit/frequency rate. You would think that with a fast internet and a
laptop that there is some effective way to do this without costing a
fortune or owning a remote server.  What about Real Audio?  Any free
resources to pull this off?

Bernhard/Rick - how did you guys stream our performances at Y2K4 last
year?

Kris