There are times in everyone’s life when it’s impossible to get away, even to attend the funeral of a person who was very important to you. Work obligations, family needs, or financial pressures might prevent you from traveling to a funeral at a distant location. Increasingly, funeral directors are offering webcasts of funeral services to make the proceedings accessible to anyone who can’t be there in person.
Using one or more cameras mounted strategically in the funeral chapel, a funeral director controls the webcast using computer software, usually on a laptop reserved especially for the purpose. The funeral service is streamed online in real time, letting anyone watch and hear the entire event.
After the service, the video is kept online for up to a year, or even longer. The funeral director, in consultation with the family, decides how long the video will be available.
Although funeral webcasts can be left open to anyone, they are usually restricted for privacy. Family members can choose to set up the funeral website with password protection, requiring anyone who wishes to see the service to enter the pre-determined password. They can keep the password protection in place during the entire time that the video is accessible online.
Families can also decide who to notify before the funeral takes place, usually via an email message system. This gives the family another layer of privacy, ensuring that their very personal event is open only to those they’ve chosen to notify. This practice isn’t necessarily designed to exclude anyone with a legitimate interest in viewing the service. Rather, it helps to prevent the possibility of casual viewers finding it by accident, much as someone might drop into a church, unaware that a funeral was in progress.
While you might be a bit uncomfortable with the idea of blending computers and video broadcasting with a proceeding as personal and deeply felt as a funeral service for someone you’ve loved, the benefits for those who can’t be there in person are immeasurable.
People who have attended funerals virtually because they had no other choice have expressed their gratitude at being able to be a part of things, if only from a distance. By way of funeral webcasting, they were able to share in the healing rituals and stories that are a part of memorializing and letting go of a loved one.
As a funeral professional, setting up a funeral webcast to offer client families another service that you can provide is simple. Contact a funeral software company for easy setup and installation help.
