Rundown Studio at the Viña del Mar International Festival 2026
• John Barker
We recently heard from Benjamín Bustamante, who is part of the direction team for the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Chile. His team used Rundown Studio during the 2026 edition of the festival, and we wanted to share a bit about how they put it to work.
“This is the biggest festival in Latin America. It is broadcast across the entire region and has a potential reach of 250 million people”.
Benjamín Bustamante, Direction Team
About the festival
The Viña del Mar International Song Festival has been running since 1960, making the 2026 edition its 65th year. It’s held every February at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater in Viña del Mar, Chile, and runs for six consecutive nights.
This year’s lineup included Gloria Estefan, Pet Shop Boys, Juanes, Mon Laferte, Bomba Estéreo, NMIXX and more — along with comedy acts and song competitions. The whole thing is broadcast live on television, radio and streaming platforms across the Americas and beyond.
How the team used Rundown Studio
With six nights of live production and multiple broadcast networks covering the event, the direction team needed a way to keep everyone following the same plan. Benjamín shared how they handled it:
“We send the links to everyone working on the production, as well as to the broadcast control rooms of the networks airing the event, so they can follow the content and commercial breaks”.
Benjamín Bustamante, Direction Team
So the team built their rundowns in Rundown Studio and shared viewer links out to the wider production crew and the control rooms at each broadcast network. That way, everyone — from the on-site production team to the remote broadcast operators — could follow the same rundown in real time.
When something shifted mid-show, the updates were there for everyone immediately. No need to chase down the latest version or relay changes over comms.
What made this work well
A few things stand out about how a production like this benefits from a shared, live rundown:
- One link, many departments — The direction team shares a read-only link with each department and broadcast partner. No accounts or installs needed on their end.
- Real-time updates — Changes to the rundown show up for everyone straight away. No version confusion.
- Commercial break visibility — Broadcast networks can see exactly where breaks fall in the show, which helps them coordinate their own switches.
- Repeatable across nights — Six nights means six rundowns. Having a consistent structure and workflow made it easier to set up each night’s show.
Sharing a rundown with external partners? Use read-only viewer links so your broadcast partners can follow along without accidentally editing anything.
Wrapping up
It’s great to see Rundown Studio being used at this scale. The core idea is the same whether you’re running a small livestream or a six-night festival — everyone on the team needs to know what’s happening and what’s coming next. Having a single, live rundown that the whole production can follow makes that a lot easier.
Thanks to Benjamín and the team at Viña del Mar for sharing how they used the tool. We’re looking forward to seeing what they do next.
Want to try Rundown Studio for your next production? Get started for free or book a demo to see how it works.
