Allegiant Stadium
It’s been a long time coming, but the Raiders have found their permanent home in Las Vegas with the opening of the incredible Allegiant Stadium. The $2 billion venue, located adjacent to the world-famous Las Vegas strip, will be a truly multipurpose stadium and global events destination, delivering for both the franchise and the city. As well as being the home of the Las Vegas Raiders and UNLV Football, the fully-enclosed and climate-controlled venue will host a wide variety of events and entertainment, including concerts, private events, and sporting events, such as the Pac-12 Championship Game, the 2022 NFL Pro Bowl, and the Las Vegas Bowl.
Allegiant Stadium, which has a total capacity of 65,000 - expandable to 72,000 for Super Bowl events - is one of the most technologically advanced, which, combined with a truly striking design, already puts it on the map when it comes to must-visit venues.
https://issuu.com/mondiale/docs/mdst14_digitallr/46
2020/21 UEFA Champions League Draws Remotely Produced
UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, and the governing body of football in Europe, selected TVU Networks to deliver their remote video solution for the first-ever remotely produced 2020 UEFA Champions League and Europa League Final 8 Draw, as well as the 2020/2021 UEFA Champions' League Group Stage Draw and awards ceremony.
The social distancing and travel restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that representatives of the participating teams were unable to physically attend the draws and ceremony hosted at UEFA headquarters near Geneva, Switzerland. Therefore UEFA appointed TVU Networks to provide a turnkey remote production solution, allowing some of the participating clubs to attend live from their respective home locations, as well as providing on-site technical and training support for the clubs and at UEFA headquarters.
Many of Europe’s top clubs, from across the continent, attended both draws, including eventual UEFA Champions League winners FC Bayern Munich, and Europa League winners Sevilla FC. To connect each location, the remote production set-up had to include: return audio feeds, mix minus feedback elimination for team member interviews, synchronized intercom communication for the camera operators at each site, and transmission with less than one second delay.
For the awards ceremony, TVU Networks delivered turnkey packages to some of the attending clubs at their home location. Each TVU production package included: a camera operator, technical and training support, TVU One mobile transmitters and the TVU Anywhere mobile broadcasting app for transmission redundancy. Live feeds from the remote locations were sent to Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) studio in Geneva for final production and broadcast on the UEFA website and on other major sport channels throughout the world.
Videolink AG, TVU Networks’ Switzerland-based partner, provided extensive technical support on the ground in Geneva.
TVU Partyline ensured each of the football clubs remotely participating could receive the video return of the live program output in real-time (less than 100ms delay). Mix/minus feedback elimination insured clean interviews.
“We are thrilled with UEFA’s confidence in our remote production solution,” said Rafael Castillo, VP of Europe, TVU Networks. “UEFA has always been a technologically progressive organization with the highest standards. And their UEFA Champions League draws are prestigious live events with a huge worldwide audience. There’s no room for error. The success of both events was a solid affirmation of our remote production technology.”
The Champions League final match is one of the most watched sporting events in the world.
San Francisco 49ers Announce Joovv as Official Light Therapy Partner
The San Francisco 49ers and Joovv Inc., a California-based company that develops light therapy products for performance, recovery and overall health and wellness, today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership between a professional sports franchise and a light therapy brand. As part of the agreement, Joovv will be the official light therapy partner of the 49ers, highlighted by the next-generation Joovv Recovery Room built adjacent to the team’s locker room.
Inside the locker room at Levi’s Stadium, players have access to a dedicated light therapy room for recovery immediately after games or practice. Light therapy has proven benefits for muscle recovery, including improving blood circulation and helping the body’s inflammation process. The San Francisco 49ers health and performance team started using Joovv products with players prior to the start of the 2019 season, and have since expanded its use in the team’s daily training and recovery routine, warranting an official team partnership.
Please see the link below for action shots of 49ers LB Fred Warner and CB K’Waun Williams utilizing the new Joovv red-light therapy room, along with 3D renderings of the room and Joovv product images
“Being from the belief that balance is the key to efficient and energetic movement, our daily use of Joovv products set our athletes up for success,” said 49ers Director of Functional Performance Elliot Williams. “Light therapy allows us to provide a player’s body with an extremely valuable resource that is proven to support the body’s natural inflammation process, increase cellular regeneration and aid in sleep optimization, three main aspects of recovery that ensure our players are at their best for gameday.”
Joovv light therapy products provide users with the ability to choose between the recovery benefits of red light, near infrared light, or both. Red light is readily absorbed by surface tissues and cells, promoting skin health and healing, while near infrared (NIR) light is invisible to the human eye, and penetrates into deeper tissues, leading to enhanced recovery by supporting the body’s natural inflammation process. Joovv’s patented modular design features Recovery+ mode, delivering continuous red light and pulsed NIR light to boost the body’s natural recovery, healing, and regeneration process -- ideal for post-workout treatments.
Detailed information about how light therapy can promote skin health, performance & recovery, and optimize sleep is available at Joovv.com, along with a summary of the Joovv product line. Additionally, the website features more than 1,000 clinical studies about the attributes of light therapy and its beneficial effects on the human body.
“We are excited to partner with a storied franchise like the 49ers, and we’re 100% committed to making the Joovv Recovery Room the best recovery experience in professional sports,” said Wes Pfiffner, Director of Marketing for Joovv. “Healthy light exposure is such an integral part of maximizing performance and recovery that we feel this is just the start of what’s possible. Our partnership signifies a new era and standard for how athletes perform and recover.”
L-Acoustics Kara Gives WSU Wildcats Some Growl at Dee Events Centre
For more than four decades, the Dee Events Center (DEC) on the campus of Weber State University (WSU) in Ogden, Utah has served as the home court of the NCAA Division I WSU Wildcats men’s and women’s basketball teams and played host to many Big Sky Conference championship games. This summer, the domed arena welcomed its newest “player”—a brand new L-Acoustics Kara(i) loudspeaker system designed and installed by Salt Lake City’s Poll Sound.
Capable of seating nearly 11,600 spectators in its circular bowl, the Dee Events Center is truly a multipurpose venue. It has also hosted its share of other college and professional sports, major touring concerts, commencements, religious and community events, and much more. Although the school has continually invested in various upgrades to the venue over the years, one thing that has remained unchanged for more than a quarter century has been DEC’s sound reinforcement system, which had become decreasingly effective with time.
“The facility’s previous sound system probably performed okay when it was installed back in the ’90s, but ‘state-of-the-art’ has certainly changed a lot since then, leaving the Dee Events Center behind in terms of impact and intelligibility,” said Poll Sound Owner Deward Timothy, who spearheaded the new L-Acoustics system design.
Deward noted that the old system was especially lacking with non-sports events where a stage is set up at one end of the court. “A centre hung array has a disadvantage in this type of setup, which is our usual scenario for ceremonies, speeches, main assemblies, graduations, small concerts, and so on. So we were given the directive to come up with a new design that would work well for both sports and stage events.”
The Poll Sound team turned to L-Acoustics Soundvision design software to find the ideal solution for the venue. The result was a bowl system made up of 66 Kara(i) enclosures and a dozen SB18i subs. These are divided into six identical arrays of 11 Kara, plus two adjacent SB18, evenly spaced around the cloud and scoreboard above centre court and hung directly from the ceiling of the geodesic dome. For power, a dozen LA12X amplified controllers are split into four racks positioned around the cloud catwalk.
“We modeled a variety of loudspeaker configurations in Soundvision, and this arrangement of Kara arrays represented the best overall solution with the main considerations being consistent coverage, maximum SPL and intelligibility, weight constraints, ease of installation, and cost,” said Timothy. He further adds that Kara has more than proven itself on numerous other Poll Sound NCAA arena projects, including the Brigham Young University Marriott Center and University of Utah Huntsman Center.
To meet the challenge of having audio originate from the stage, Poll Sound chose to specify the deployment of four medium-throw L-Acoustics Syva colinear loudspeakers, each seated atop a Syva Low enclosures on the stage floor for extended LF performance. “These provide the audio precedence and floor coverage, and delay portions of the main array back to the stage,” Deward described. “This is easy to do because we can create coverage zones with the positioning of the Kara arrays; for example, those facing back to the podium and blocked off areas are not turned on when using the stage.” All of this zoning and variation in setups is managed through presets that Poll Sound programmed into LA Network Manager.
Deward’s team also supplied the facility with eight short-throw X8 coaxial enclosures for use as stage monitors and for frontfill as needed, plus three four-channel LA4X amplified controllers for power and processing.
Due to the pandemic, DEC hasn’t hosted events since the sound system installation; however, it hasn’t stopped the team there from being impressed with the new setup. “We have been very pleased with the coverage and clarity of the sound system at all points from the court floor to the top of the arena,” said WSU Assistant Director, Event and Sports Facilities Mark Livingston, who has been with the school for 13 years. “When our current Director and I first heard Poll Sound starting to test the system from her office, it sounded so clear that we thought we were hearing the full system, when in fact, it was just the first line array that they had flown. Even that one array was outperforming our entire old system!
“This sound system has been one of the greatest upgrades I have seen for the university in my years with Weber State,” he continued. “With 22 high school graduations and all the speaking events that we hold here at the Dee Events Center, this new L-Acoustics system is a major upgrade that will help the rest of the venue shine. We’re also very excited to finally be able to tie touring concerts and performances into our sound system, which is something we’ve always had to hire out in the past. Both L-Acoustics and Poll Sound—especially Dan Salmond, who was the best project lead I have ever had the pleasure of working with—were amazing, going well above and beyond what we expected. We’re so happy with what we’re now hearing here at the Dee, and we can’t wait for WSU Wildcats fans and our other patrons to experience it for themselves.”
Danley Takes OS80’S to Deep Run High School for Concert Level Sound
As the Henrico County, Virginia school system slowly rolls out a turf upgrade for all of its high school football stadiums, the Deep Run High School Wildcats are the lucky recipients of the first upgrade. Attendance at the games is a regular part of Friday-night football culture in the suburban-Richmond area. To give a sense of its size, the Deep Run stadium held over 8,000 people for a Sarah Palin rally in 2008. As part of the entire upgrade, Deep Run High School local AV integration firm RTW Media installed a new, concert-level sound reinforcement system comprised of Danley Sound Labs OS80 fully-weatherized loudspeakers and stand-shaking TH118XL subwoofers. The other schools in Henrico County will follow Deep Run’s lead in the coming years.
“High school football is a huge part of life in southern Virginia,” explained Zack Guida, logistics manager at RTW Media. “Everyone pours tons of time, energy, and resources into football: students, parents, coaches – even the administration! Deep Run’s existing system was in the neighborhood of twenty years old and was barely able to effectively deliver announcements, let alone play music that anyone would call inspiring. It was a pair of tired speakers mounted to a pole far away – beyond the end zone. It had terrible coverage and zero horsepower.”
He continued: “We have used Danley’s ‘standard’ press box-mounted high school football design in the past, and we knew it would be a great solution for Deep Run. We could mount Danley’s fully-weatherized OS80s on the press box and get even coverage across the stands. We don’t end up overpowering the folks who are close to the press box, and the Danley point-source technology cuts the air, travels far, and remains articulate.”
Despite Zack’s confidence that a Danley system would give Deep Run High School the kind of performance that would get the community excited and despite the fact that a Danley system would be quite affordable, there were definitely cheaper options out there. “Sometimes it’s hard to explain to somebody why they shouldn’t just go with the same lackluster system the county has been using for the past decade,” he said. “The easiest way to convince them is with a demo. RTW Media partnered with the regional Danley rep to show them the Danley difference. It was just a single Danley OS80 and a Danley TH118XL subwoofer. We were less than a minute into the demo and everyone was nodding their heads, convinced!”
Zack and his team installed three Danley OS80s on top of Deep Run High School’s press box. One fires across the field, and the other two cover the left and right portion of the home-side stands. A pair of Danley Go2 8CX loudspeakers provide front fill for spectators near the press box. By itself, that system would have been impressive, but a pair of Danley TH118XL subwoofers take it over the top with concert-level subwoofer performance.
“If you’ve ever been to a typical high school football stadium, Deep Run is something else,” Zack concluded. “This school will rock out!”
MA Lighting grandMA3 Consoles Control NBA Restart
When professional basketball resumed in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBA protected its players by establishing a “bubble” isolation zone at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida. Although the general public was not permitted in the stands at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex where the games were held, fans were glad to be able to watch the season’s televised final games and the playoffs once again.
Fuse Technical Group, which supplied all the court video systems, provided four programmers with an arsenal of grandMA hardware to play back and trigger various assets and effects during the games: five grandMA3 full-size units with an NPU plus two grandMA2 full-size and one grandMA2 Light consoles, the latter as backup systems and the tech desk. ACT Lighting is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting products in North America.
Three basketball courts were created in the sports complex with giant, wraparound LED video screens topped by graphics displays. A pre-recorded national anthem as well as player intros were displayed on the massive screens before the start of games and virtual fans were shown enjoying and reacting to game play. To customise the courts for the designated “home team,” a database of music, audio cues and graphics that the teams would ordinarily use in their home arenas was used – with the dynamic audio and video elements building in intensity as the playoffs progressed.
“The NBA wanted to create an interesting on-camera experience that would engage as many fans as possible. The solution they arrived at was to line the courts with a U-shaped LED arrangement,” said Lighting Programmer, Jeremy Lechterman, Principal of FragmentNine, a live event creative direction company. “That high-resolution element was primarily used to display team content and the virtual fans while a low-res ribbon element was hung above to simulate traditional in-arena video.” In addition, a scoreboard element, about one-quarter the size of a typical centre-hung arena scoreboard, was set on the side under the camera platform primarily for coaches and players.
MA Lighting grandMA3s were programmed to integrate with 13 disguise gx 2c media servers, which handled the teams’ screens content, and a Barco E2 system, which switched the virtual fans, the disguise team content, stats, and the program cut from broadcast.
“During the seeding games, which were an extension of the regular season, all three courts were running concurrently with up to seven games a day,” noted Lighting Programmer, Michael 'Hank' Hankowsky.
“This was the first time any of us [programmers] had done sports and the first time this format was used,” Jeremy pointed out. He and Hank were joined in the bubble by programmers Jackson Gallagher and Charles Dabezies.
“The grandMA3 is not the system typically used in these teams’ home arenas to handle video,” Jeremy explained. “None of the usual in-arena systems could be used in the bubble where we needed to serve up content for 22 teams and have multiple simultaneous users. Without the grandMA3 there wouldn’t have been a solution.”
Early on when the programmers were in quarantine Jeremy had one of the grandMA3s in his hotel room. “We had multiple exhaustive Zoom calls with all the team reps making the content so we could play it back for them and they could see it in the 3D environment that was replacing the broadcast experience,” he said.
It quickly became clear to the programmers that given the size and scope of the game play, “the whole system needed to be one giant session, one giant show file,” instead of 22 show files one for each season-starting team, which “would have been a nightmare,” Jeremy added.“We needed to move things between venues very fast so all 22 shows were built into one show file and all the venues were networked together.”
The NBA restart marked the first time any of the programmers had used grandMA3 hardware for a long-term show although the grandMA3 is their platform of choice. “We came to the grandMA3 with muscle memory from the MA2, and it didn’t take us long to adapt to the MA3,” stated Jeremy.
He gives kudos to the grandMA3’s multi-user environment – something not found on other platforms. “We had four programmers working independently at the same time and handing the programming seamlessly,” Jeremy reported. “We built a complex series of macros to achieve this, but we were able to program four games simultaneously without stepping on each other.”
Hank notes that the programmers had tallied a staggering “7,000 individual clips by the middle of the process. The grandMA3 is so extensible; we could write custom script to automate a lot of the data entries. Then with data and preprogrammed looks in the desk we could copy and paste them where we needed them.”
“It was amazing the way Hank really scripted the consoles,” said Chris Peterson, Vice President of Entertainment at Fuse Technical Group. “The ability to parse large amounts of data and build huge cue lists was instrumental in the success of this job.”
During the seeding games the programmers typically worked games at FOH alongside a screens producer representing their own team’s in-arena presentation. The screens producers were armed with Novation Launchpad X MIDI loaded with in-game reactive elements such as player headshots and animations for a three-pointer or a spectacular dunk. “Because they understood basketball better than we did, they could trigger those elements on their own in the grandMA3 via the MIDI pad,” Jeremy explained. “While we were handling the big switching elements – the virtual fans, the video packages, time-out highlight reels – they could quickly trigger all the game play reactions.”
Additionally, he explained: “On the corner screens in the ribbons, we were tasked with displaying and changing sponsor advertisements and specific intervals on the game clock,” said Jeremy. “This was accomplished with Cycling 74’s Max 8, which read the incoming game clock signal from Mixon Stats and sent DMX triggers to the consoles. System Engineer, Josh Flitel also wrote a Universe show control file to give us full access to the E2s and routers from the desk. The entire show could be run using the grandMA3 as the only control surface. Josh did an incredible job building out this handshake between all the parts of the system.”
Content was constantly upgraded as the season progressed and milestones were marked. “As of September 10 the media managed totalled 14,200 individual video clips,” Hankreported. “Changes were still being made as we reached the Eastern Conference finals. Having the grandMA3’s flexibility to make changes on the fly was invaluable. Everyone was very pleased with the system’s performance.”
Jeremy said that ACT Lighting provided “A+ level support all around” for the NBA’s resumed season. “The first couple of weeks I’d call ACT’s Software Support Manager Ryan Kanarek for gut checks that what we were doing was okay and to get help with any head scratchers,” he recalled. “We got some pretty in depth macros to make it all work seamlessly; even MA Lighting’s German headquarters contributed. Also, special thanks to Philip Norfolk at UK-based Ambersphere Solutions for his grandMA3 support.”
For his part, Fuse’s Peterson was “happy to put some of our brand new grandMA3s to use during the pandemic. The NBA bubble was a successful strategy all the way around.”
Robe Stands As One at Silverstone for LightItInRed & #WeMakeEvents Global Day of Action
Torrential rain didn’t dampen the spirit or enthusiasm of Robe, Clearsound and Silverstone’s events and conference team who joined forces to transform the racetrack’s ‘Wing’ building and conference centre into a beacon of red light on 30 September 2020, in support of #WeMakeEvents Global Day of Action.
Almost 100 Robe moving lights supplied by Clearsound and Robe helped light two key locations at Silverstone – The Wing pit lane and paddock building, which resembles the wing of a race car with extensive event and conference facilities on the higher floors, and the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC) Clubhouse.
Robe luminaires were combined with around 150 other lighting fixtures sourced from Clearsound, with additional fixtures from Dragonfly Lighting and CSR Lighting with additional control from Antire Technical Productions, contributing to the spectacle.
AE Hire supplied power distribution, ARB provided three mobile LED screens; Onpoint Logistics supported Clearsound and Robe, having transported during two previous #LightItInRed and #WeMakeEvents campaign events.
MLE Pyrotechnics provided lasers and drone footage, while The Flightcase Warehouse deployed a custom range of #WeMakeEvents branded flightcase, with Frasershot Studios capturing the imagery.
A technical crew of 22 – a mix of Clearsound regular freelancers and others who responded to a Facebook crew shout out – plus Robe UK’s Jordan Tinniswood and Simon Gooding were led by Project Manager, Steven Haynes of Clearsound. Steven and Phillip Berryman are founders of the #LightItInRed movement.
On site, Steven and Robe UK Head of Marketing, Theresa Gibson liaised with Silverstone Circuit Technical Manager, Paul Goodall, PR Consultant Alison Hill and Head of Sales, Hayley Smith to ensure things ran smoothly. Theresa commented: “Led by our very own team principle Steven Haynes from Clearsound Productions and the awesome crew who volunteered their services, the event was a testament to the sheer passion, drive and determination that these talented individuals have for an industry they all love and are desperately missing.”
She added: “The feeling of unity, togetherness and empowerment was really something else and not only did it help raise vital public awareness about this usually unseen industry, it brought people together and created some unique memories in the way that only this industry can! A heartfelt thanks to all of you that made this happen!”
Most of the Robe fixtures – a mix of Pointes, MegaPointes, Spiiders, Spikies and LEDBeam 150s – were located inside on the third and fourth floor of the Wing’s 360m length, blasting out through the glass into the cloudy, wet night skies.
The side of the building was lit red with waterproof LED floods deployed on the ground along its length, while additional beams of light blasted out from the pit garages below. On the track starting grid adjacent to the pit lane garages, Silverstone provided a selection of super-fast vehicles – Ferraris, Aston Martins and BMWs – together with two fire trucks, which were lined up together with a selection of flightcases.
At the BRDC building, the lighting scheme for the night was designed by Ryan Murfet of Antire Technical Productions, who utilised a Robe MegaPointe, a Pointe and an ESPRITE to fire beams out from the top of the balcony, skimming the low clouds to be visible from all around the site. The balcony canopy roof and the atrium of the building were lit with LED PARs.
Steven commented: “It was another amazing #LightItInRed event uniting a fantastic crew who gave it lots of energy and weren’t the slightest bit fazed by the awful weather. I would like to say a massive thank you to all those involved both onsite and behind the scenes, we wouldn’t have been able to do this without you. It was a pleasure working with Silverstone’s team and being part of a unique global event representing this incredible industry and assisting #WeMakeEvents to hopefully get our collective voices of heard.”
Tarqs Bridgwood of Northampton-based SoundSounds commented: “I would have been more at home rigging a dirty great big line array PA system, but this was fantastic. While the weather wasn’t kind, this was a real testament to the fact that we really DO make events happen. Whatever curved balls are thrown our way, we can deal with them with imagination and lateral thinking. I’ve lost count of all those I’ve done in the rain, wind, and other hostile elements over the years, and the show always happens!”
Theresa summed up the experience: “What the team achieved has been truly incredible. To have the opportunity to support the #WeMakeEvents Global Day of Action at Silverstone Circuit as a prominent #LightItInRed illumination on the UK map was something very special. It was a great opportunity to collaborate with existing and new industry friends and colleagues who contributed their time, equipment and services free of charge, despite the plight and pain the industry is feeling across the sector!”
Elation Helps Take Street Fighting to a New Level in Tulsa
In mid-August, Matchroom Boxing and sports streaming service DAZN placed a boxing ring in the middle of the street in downtown Tulsa for a night of fighting action that gave a whole new meaning to street fighting. Omni Lighting in Tulsa was called on to light the event for co-producers Matchroom and DAZN and chose to support the action using an adaptable rig of Elation lights. Holden Productions promoted the event locally.
There are few things more exhilarating than a good boxing match where two evenly matched opponents go toe to toe to see who’s got the most grit. Tension runs high and the excitement level is at a peak both leading up to and during a bout. That suspense is the result of a number of factors, not least the lighting environment, which can ratchet up the fervor one moment then settle to put clear focus on the task at hand once the bouts begin.
Wanting to stage something unique and spectacular, DAZN and Matchroom placed a ring at the intersection of E. 5th Street and S. Boston Avenue in the heart of Tulsa, with no fans present and strict social distancing and medical protocols in place for the full night of action. In a unique display of high-visibility promotional lighting, Olsen got his hands on some of the first Elation Artiste Mondrian moving heads available and used the 51,000-lumen strong LED luminaires to project logos onto the nearby 52-story BOK Tower skyscraper prior to and during the boxing matches.
“The BOK Tower was our target building for logo projection but it lies at the end of the street so our challenge was how to project a logo onto the building at that distance,” stated Omni Lighting’s Jeff Olsen, who adds that they had a Batman logo gobo created by Apollo to use as a test image. “That’s where the Artiste Mondrian came into play. We had heard about it from [Elation Sales Rep] Joe Adams, looked at the specs and thought it would be just the right light for this.”
Prior to the event, Olsen tested the long throw to the BOK Tower using the Batman logo and was happy with the result. “The throw is about 2 ½ city blocks which translates into a 1,018 foot projection distance up to the building,” he said. “The 51,000 lumens got the job done and it looked great.” Before and during the event, two different gobos were projected using two Mondrians, a DAZN logo onto the BOK Tower and the Matchroom logo onto another building. Other lights were also used to throw logos onto adjacent buildings.
Boxing requires highly dynamic, high-speed lighting looks for boxer introductions, pre-bout hype, and between round looks, as well as disciplined static white light onto the ring once the boxing match starts. The two-fold task is ideal for easily repositionable, automated luminaires and a string of Elation luminaires were used in the overall design.
The atmosphere in the build up to a good match is critical for both the fighters and the audience, in this case an exclusive live broadcast on DAZN. For rousing fighter entrances on the red carpet, 24 Dartz 360 LED beam/spot moving heads lined the runway, shooting beams and ballyhoo effects skyward while fog jets blared and background LED screens flashed. Adding to the energy from the upstage portion of the rooftop, and used for beauty shots for camera, were effects from compact Elation Rayzor 360Z LED beam moving heads with zoom.
Once the fights started however, the special effects stop and the fixtures crossfaded onto the boxing ring in carefully positioned white light, working with rows of regular PAR lights diffused for an even white wash across the ring. Between rounds, the effect lighting again turned dynamic with moments of movement and effect. Additionally, Elation SixPar 200 6-color PAR lights were used to bathe the truss in warm color while in lieu of audience lighting a dozen Fuze Spots, positioned left and right of the ring, panned special effects onto downtown buildings.
Omni Lighting coordinated production of the event, supplied much of the lighting and built the rig. Omni also supplied and assembled a rooftop structure subcontracted through Oklahoma City-based production company Toucan Productions. AZ Sound Pro of Arizona also supplied lighting gear for the event and handled the lighting and sound design, as well as programming, for the building lighting and fighter entrance. The boxing ring lighting design was by Gatto Associates and Omni Lighting.
Omni Lighting was a big supporter of September 1’s #WeMakeEvents #RedAlertRESTART event in support of entertainment technology professionals and had the opportunity to use the Artiste Mondrians on that event as well. While the Omni facility in Tulsa glowed red from SixPar 200 IP luminaires, lined along their loading dock were Dartz 360 fixtures as well as the two Mondrians, which projected high into the night as sky tracker effects.
Riedel Bolero, MediorNet, and Artist Power Video and Comms Infrastructure for Australia’s Thoroughbred Racing Productions
Thoroughbred Racing Productions (TRP), a leading provider of production services for the Australian thoroughbred horse racing industry, has migrated its communications and signal routing infrastructure to Riedel Communications’ Artist digital matrix intercom, Bolero wireless intercom, and MediorNet real-time network. The centerpiece of the Riedel installation is TRP’s largest OB vehicle, HDOB1, which has undergone a modernization to Bolero from its previous two-way radio intercom system.
Based in Melbourne, TRP covers 525 thoroughbred events throughout the state of Victoria and produces over 3,500 hours of live HD racing broadcasts every year. The new 22-camera, 14.6-meter HDOB1 trailer, designed by TRP and built by Sony, is a mainstay at high-profile Spring Racing Carnival, which includes one of the world’s high-profile races, the Melbourne Cup.
“Of all the intercom solutions we considered for the HDOB1 upgrade, Bolero offered the most advanced features. Coupled with the decentralized signal routing flexibility of MediorNet, Bolero gives us outstanding voice quality, reliability, and range,” said Charles Cole, Engineering and Technical Operations Manager, TRP. “Bolero has simplified comms for our field operations, but at the same time, it gives us massive capacity over traditional RF communications. Setups, changes, and additions that were always a challenge before are now easily done with a few mouse clicks. Plus, we’ve seen a considerable reduction in distribution and interconnect costs within our facility.”
Previously, TRP’s main facility relied on a two-way radio field communications workflow and a traditional, centralized video router, with racecourse infrastructures that varied from racetrack to racetrack. TRP faced challenges common to any operation that relies on multiple two-way radio channels for communications: licensing issues related to multiple users on a single frequency who were attempting to use the frequency at a particular site, interference, and the complexities of spectrum management for large productions with multiple vendors. Bolero eliminates all of these issues working with a MediorNet MetroN core router and 21 MediorNet MicroN nodes, including fly-away frames and integrated multiviewers. The integrated Riedel solution enables modular and seamless distribution of video, communications, and data signals within each racecourse for broadcast production.
The Bolero-MediorNet combination has removed the bottlenecks of the previous intercom setup, giving each field communications position a discrete channel and enabling teams to work independently and efficiently. Before, the reliance on the single video router meant that users were constrained by the size of the router and design of the OB unit infrastructure; with MediorNet, each position is able to access all signals without affecting others.
“TRP’s installation is a real milestone — the first OB truck project in Australia in which Bolero replaces a previous two-way radio workflow. The deployment is especially notable for its heavy focus on IP-based solutions, leveraging Riedel’s expertise in IP-based workflows based on the SMPTE ST 2110 standard for broadcast,” said Espen Brynildsen, Technical Solutions Manager, Riedel Communications Australia. “One of the key success factors for this project was the outstanding cooperation and open communication amongst Riedel, Sony, and TRP around aspects such as switch functionality and network optimization. It’s another example of TRP’s technology leadership and outstanding track record in broadcast coverage for thoroughbred racing.”
Supponor Strengthens its European Team with the Appointment of Massimo Magrì
Supponor, the global leader in virtual advertising technology solutions in live broadcast sports, is proud to announce the appointment to its senior leadership team of Massimo Magrì, joining the company as the European Commercial Director. The appointment will support the company’s regional expansion in Spain and Germany, led by its Headquarters in London and R&D Centre in Helsinki, helping scale the company to meet the rapidly increasing market demands for virtual advertising.
As European Commercial Director, Massimo Magrì will oversee and lead the company’s ongoing commercial growth across Europe. With 15+ years in the sports business, Massimo brings a wealth of international commercial experience to Supponor in media and marketing rights, TV production and pioneering new technologies in football and other sports. Most recently he held the role of Head of Virtual Advertising at Infront Sports & Media, working with a broad range of sports rights holders, including Serie A and the Bundesliga.
Massimo commented: “Having developed my career in Virtual Advertising and observing the industry for many years now, it is with great excitement that I join the Supponor team at a key time for the company to accelerate the growth of its successful commercial deployments across Europe. Supponor’s solutions are more relevant than ever to enable rights holders to unlock new revenues, to offer targeted audience engagement for sponsors and relevant advertising content for fans.”
James B Gambrell, CEO of Supponor, said: “While 2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for the entire live sports industry, Supponor has seen a significant breakthrough in commercial deployments as the benefits of our virtual advertising solutions have become ever more essential for value generation for our clients and their sponsors and broadcasters. After having begun to consolidate our lead across European football in Spain and Germany, with the appointment of Massimo we are preparing for further, rapid expansion in the seasons to come. Massimo’s understanding of our clients and their needs along with his knowledge and experience in virtual advertising in broadcast production will see Supponor reach new heights.”