On January 22, 2026, World of Dance Hong Kong became the first global event to pilot Mitico’s community-based livestreaming model. The idea is simple: rethink how live competitions are shared in a digital-first world.

Instead of relying on a single official broadcast, the event was produced as one centralised live feed. It was then distributed across multiple creators and influencers, each hosting the stream for their own audience.

This gave creators room to add their own commentary, adapt the language and bring in cultural context that suited their communities, while the production remained consistent behind the scenes.  

“Dance is a universal language”, said David Gonzalez, President of World of Dance. “Our collaboration with Mitico to produce an international, creator-led livestream in Hong Kong allowed a regional competition to reach a global audience. With personalised commentary from hosts in different languages, we can begin to see how regional events may connect through global communities”. This approach points to a shift away from traditional broadcaster-led distribution and toward creator-led amplification.

Mitico’s approach begins with a familiar industry challenge: the high cost of production and licensing, which often makes it difficult to livestream cultural and sports events at scale.  

“Many cultural and sports competitions are never livestreamed because traditional broadcasting is too costly and complex”, said Chengcheng Li, Founder of Mitico. “By distributing a centralised production feed through creators and community hosts, regional events can reach global audiences while maintaining a unified production workflow”.

World of Dance (WOD) offered a natural test environment. It started as a global dance competition platform before entering a television partnership with NBC, which later produced four seasons of the World of Dance reality series. While the television programme concluded in 2021, the competition business has continued to expand through an international network of partners. Today, World of Dance competitions are represented in more than 72 countries, producing nearly 100 events each year, with a digital audience of more than 34 million followers across platforms

Despite that scale, many competitions are not livestreamed due to the high production costs and technical demands associated with traditional broadcasting. The Hong Kong event was selected to assess whether a community-led distribution model could offer a more scalable alternative for live coverage.

While no changes to World of Dance’s broader distribution strategy have been announced, the Hong Kong pilot offers an early indication of how global competitions may rethink livestreaming in an increasingly creator-driven media environment.