How live captions work at a UAE event
Picture a two-day industry forum in a Dubai exhibition centre. The main stage sits in an open hall, next to stands and a coffee bar. The keynote is in English, one panel is in Arabic, and the audience includes delegates from across the GCC, South Asia and Europe. Two registered guests are deaf.
We take the stage feed from the venue sound desk. Guests scan the QR code on their badge and choose a language. A delegate from Lahore reads in Urdu. A Gulf delegate who speaks English well reads in Arabic, and taps “Show original” when a technical term looks unfamiliar. The two deaf guests choose English and read the keynote in its own language, then Arabic for the Arabic panel. Nobody needs to hear the stage over the hall.
If you want to add spoken interpretation as well, guests can switch to audio with captions. That is our AI interpretation service, running from the same feed.
Real-time captioning for accessibility
Same-language captions give deaf and hard of hearing guests access to talks they would otherwise miss. They also help guests listening in a second language, and anyone sitting far from the stage.
Be clear about what they are. These are machine captions. They can contain errors, especially with names, heavy accents, poor audio and people speaking over each other. A glossary reduces errors with names and terms, but does not remove them.
When you need a human captioner
A human CART captioner (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is a trained person who writes what is said as it is said. If a law, a contract or a guest’s accommodation request specifies human real-time captioning, machine captions are not a substitute. Book a human captioner for that session, and use SIM.AI for the wider audience if it helps.
What makes captions read well
- A clean feed. Audio from the desk beats a room microphone every time.
- One speaker at a time. Ask moderators to keep panellists from talking over each other.
- A glossary. Send us speaker names, organisation names and key terms before the day.
- Good signal. Guests need mobile data or venue Wi-Fi to receive captions.
After the session you can receive standard subtitle files and written transcripts per language, described on our transcripts and records page. For the guest journey from scan to reading, see how SIM.AI works, and for planning advice read our article on live captions at events. Captions are a natural fit for lectures and graduations at universities.