Newsletter from 07/04/2020
Coronavirus risks downward spiral for events industry
Rise in number of sponsors, enhanced reach among youth population, and increase in inclination toward entrepreneurship among youth was driving the growth expectation of the global events market. Europe accounted for nearly two-fifths of the total market share in 2018, and was estimated to maintain its dominating position during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific was expected to witness the highest CAGR of 13.0% throughout the forecast period.
The global events industry (Music Concerts, Festivals, Sports, Exhibitions & Conferences, Corporate Events & Seminars and Others) generated $1,100 billion in 2018, and was projected to reach $2,330 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 10.3% from 2019 to 2026.
The North American sports media rights — fees paid to air sporting events on TV, the internet, and mobile devices — were projected to reach $23 billion in 2021, up from $19 billion in 2017, marking a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.3%. Media rights were expected to be the most lucrative and fastest growing of the four segments (Media rights, ticketing, sponsorship, and cerchandising) that make up North American sports revenue. The growth of media rights revenue also reflects the premium that's was paid for live sports.
Coronavirus risks downward spiral for events industry
Now Country authorities around the world have cancelled all upcoming events to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. “This disease is presenting the exhibitions and events industry with an unprecedented global challenge,” said Cathy Breden, executive vice-president of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events. As the number of coronavirus cases climbs in the US, the UK and across Europe, some of the biggest event organisers face the risk that the disruption extends into the spring and summer .
This has a dramatic impact on all the live production companies around the world. Studio capacity and OBVan capacity is currently on hold. However we hope that by May or June we will see positive movement again. We think that is what everyone hopes. The good thing on the broadcasting side is that it will pick up very quickly because all the studio and OBVan infrastructure is only in rest mode and not dead. The teams take their well-deserved rest after hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of overtime. And to get back fresh energy for the challenging times after the coronavirus. As soon as there is live content people will enjoy live sports and live concerts even more than before. Once the live production community will return to their normal professional lives, we expect sports and events broadcasting will pick up quickly.
Please find here more than 600 HighEnd OB Trucks to cover your next events.
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MOBILE PRODUCTION
EKSTRAKLASA LIVE PARK 4K HDR
Ekstraklasa Live Park is a company which hires professionals with extensive experience in production and implementation of sporting events. Our team members have participated in the production of; FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championship, UEFA Champions League matches, UEFA Europa League, Polish football national team matches, Summer Olympic Games, FIS Ski Jumping World Cup, World Weightlifting Championships, professional boxing and MMA galas. Our work has been recognized by the producer of the TV signal of all FIFA World Cups since 2002. Exchange of experiences with HBS, which defines standards for TV production of football matches, allows us to deliver a product worthy of the best football leagues in Europe.
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ORF uses Lawo in first all-IP OB FÜ1 for sports and cultural event production
The new, fully IP-based Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) FÜ1 is optimally equipped for ambitious production of sports and cultural events. Central to its ability to cover Alpine winter sports, football broadcasts, entertainment shows and concerts with equal ease are two Lawo mc²96 Grand Production Console systems and five V__matrix frames loaded with 37 C100 Processing Blades for multiviewing and IP streaming. The Lawo installation is a key part of the A/V infrastructure of the Vienna-based OB van, which was constructed by system house BFE. The new truck replaces ORF’s FÜ22 TV OB – which had been in operation since 2005 – bringing the latest technological capabilities to the company’s OB facilities.
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Live Nation introduces ‘Live at Home’ site
Faced with the prospect of canceled and postponed shows for the foreseeable future, Live Nation is getting involved in the trend toward live streaming performances. Through its website at livenation.com, the live music and event giant has introduced “Live at Home” a consolidated list with links of performances that are live streaming during the coronavirus crisis. The page lists links to one-off shows from artists like Third Eye Blind and Phish along with weekly series delivered from Miley Cyrus and Metallica. All shows through May at the Xfinity Theatre in Hartford have been cancelled or postponed. The next scheduled performance is country group Sugarland on June 6.
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STUDIO / REMOTRE PRODUCTION
Jordan Media City Upgrades Mission-Critical Playout Functionality With Pebble Beach Systems Marina Automation
“We are proud to strengthen our partnership with JMC as they migrate all of their channels to Marina,” said Samir Isbaih, Pebble Beach Systems’ VP of Sales ME and APAC. “With more than 400 channels already on air in the MENA region, Marina is the most modern automation platform in the market and continues to transform the playout capabilities and the service agility of users. It continues to be actively developed and features a number of enhancements - including Arabic language support - which were specifically developed for the Middle East.” Radi Alkhas, Managing Director of Jordan Media City said, “Our years of experience with Pebble Beach Systems’ technology and their responsive and knowledgeable team of engineers gave us the confidence to migrate all our channels from Neptune to the Marina platform. We look forward to continuing this excellent working relationship in the years to come.”
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Swiss Parliament Continues to Rely on Stage Tec
The three ON AIR flex consoles were installed in the National Council Chamber, the Council of States Chamber and in the largest committee room. The mixing consoles are used there for recording debates, sound reinforcement, multi-language operation (German, French, Italian) and for connection to the SRG (Swiss Radio and Television Corporation). The 2011 NEXUS network has been completely replaced and now consists of eight Base Devices plus two routers located in different buildings for redundancy. "The decision was again in favour of NEXUS because operational safety and reliability are top priorities for our customer and NEXUS fulfils all requirements. Uninterruptible redundancy was one of the main reasons for replacing the audio equipment. NEXUS modular design is also very flexible and thanks to Logic Control, all the Parliament's wishes could be met," explains Thomas Jud, head of engineering at Kilchenmann.
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PEBBLE BEACH SYSTEMS SUPPORTS INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTERS THROUGH CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
The Auto List Loader, which can be remotely configured on Marina systems by Pebble engineers, enables broadcasters to run a process loading files from a local drive, or a network share, automatically into Marina. This ensures the playlists remain updated without operator intervention being required. Marina simply polls a watch folder to check for ‘triggers’, that is playlist files, events, or blocks of events which meet pre-defined criteria, and these are then appended to the playlist. As the global health crisis escalates, remote working has become mandatory around the globe. French culture channel ARTE relies on Pebble’s Marina solution for its playout operations, including the management of playlists across multiple locations and countries. Their team also uses Pebble’s web-based Lighthouse solution to monitor ARTE’s playlists in a consolidated view within a web browser, whether at the broadcast facility or remotely and securely from their homes.
SPORT EVENTS
Friendly football esports series launched by Serie A and Infront Italy
The official eSerie A TIM league has been suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis. Serie A with Infront Italy, in its joint role as promoter, producer and organiser, alongside the partner PG Esport, unveiled the alternative online event for fans and players alike. The tournaments consist of four teams facing each other prior to the start of the eSerie A TIM. After competing in a group stage, the teams will face each other in the semi-finals and final. The first tournament will feature the four FIFA20 Teams from eSerie A TIM's Inter | Qlash, A.S. Roma, Genoa Esports and Fiorentina Esports.
Nextologies Partners with MAV TV for the Live Remote Production and Transmission of the "Ricmotech Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires iRacing
MAVTV Canada, the destination for all things motorsports, has once again partnered with custom end-to-end video broadcast solutions provider Nextologies Limited to provide complex live remote production and transmission services for the Ricmotech Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires iRacing eSeries. The Race is a collaboration between MAVTV Canada, Road to Indy, Ricmotech Racing Simulators, Xtrememotorsports and Apex Racing to help raise funds towards the COVID-19 relief efforts. Each of these races will feature competitors representing all three levels of the world’s leading driver development platform. All competitors that will be racing in this cause will have their registration fees donated to a special COVID-19 fund.
SHOW EVENTS
Dave Matthews Band 2018 Tour with Elation Chorus Line
The band’s first tour since 2016 runs through Sept 10th with the final show at the Hollywood Bowl in LA. The tour is in support of the band's new album “Come Tomorrow” that debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. Lighting design is by Fenton Williams together with Aaron Stinebrink of tour lighting vendor TMS of Omaha, Nebraska. Both Williams and TMS have been associated with the Dave Matthews Band for over two decades. The designers use 30 Chorus Line 16 LED battens in the rig, 15 on the backdrop truss and another fifteen just downstage of the backdrop on the floor. Stinebrink calls the zoomable RGBW color-changing linear bar light a dual purpose fixture. “We chose the Chorus Line due to the tight zoom angle you can achieve as well as being brighter than other products we tested,” he said. The Chorus Line 16’s power comes from sixteen 40W LEDs that allow for use on large stage performances and enough punch to compete with bright LED video screens. Motorized zoom optics mean it can be used to light set objects and cycs or backdrops and a 220° tilt motor function lets designers position the unit dynamically during a show. It also has full pixel control for direct eye candy looks.
Bon Iver Delivers Magnificent Show with L-ISA
Over the past decade, Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon has emerged from the woods of Wisconsin as one of modern music’s most inventive songsmiths. Although his group’s musical path may have started out sounding something more akin to folk music, Vernon’s trajectory over the course of his last couple of records has explored everything from rustic chamber pop to haunting, textural collages of vocoders and electronica. With such a broad range of sonic elements in the mix, Bon Iver’s show at the Santa Barbara Bowl on an L-ISA Hyperreal Sound system recently served as an unforgettable opportunity for 4,500 lucky fans to hear the group in an expansively panoramic soundscape for the first time. “Bon Iver’s records are amazing and Grammy Award-winning, but anyone who has seen them perform will quickly tell you that their live show is infinitely better,” says L-Acoustics’ Scott Sugden. “And none of it is pre-recorded or set to timecode. Everything is done live—organically and dynamically—by the band, which never plays the same set twice.”
PRODUCTS
Genelec Immersive Audio webinars
Therefore, over the next two weeks, Genelec’s Eric Horstmann will be hosting two G*Connect webinars on immersive audio: the first, on Tuesday 7th April, called ‘Immersive Audio Demystified’, explains the principles of immersive audio, discussing the major audio formats, their application in the real world, and what type of loudspeaker systems are required to handle this type of content. The second webinar on Tuesday 14th April is titled ‘Designing an Immersive Mix or Edit Room’, during which Eric will guide viewers through the principles and best practices of designing of an immersive mix or edit room – including the selection and positioning of loudspeakers, and explaining the entire signal chain to the finished mix.
Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Camera Update 6.9
Blackmagic Design announced new software update for its popular Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and 6K models that include powerful studio camera features. Now customers can connect to an ATEM Mini switcher and get control of the camera parameters, lens and tally light. ATEM Mini can control up to 4 cameras via the HDMI video connection and ensure all cameras are perfectly matched for a professional live studio workflow. Now the same Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera can work as a digital film camera and a studio camera! Blackmagic Camera Update 6.9 is available for download now from the Blackmagic Design web site.
Blackmagic Design Announces HyperDeck Studio Mini v7.1
HyperDeck Studio Mini is a miniaturized broadcast deck that’s so compact and portable customers can use it anywhere. Customers get a choice of incredible quality H.264, ProRes or DNx codecs recorded to SD or UHS-II card media in either QuickTime or MXF file formats. HyperDeck Studio Mini has features such as 6G-SDI for all formats up to 2160p30, HDMI for monitoring, dual SD card slots for non-stop recording and built in sync generator that lets customers daisy chain and synchronize multiple decks together. HyperDeck Studio Mini features multi rate 6G-SDI connections so customers can work with all SD, HD and Ultra HD formats up to 2160p30. Customers get an SDI input and two SDI outputs that can be used for fill and key. The HDMI output makes HyperDeck Studio Mini perfect for connecting to big screen televisions, projectors and digital signs. For large digital signage, there's reference input and a reference generator with reference output that lets customers sync multiple HyperDecks for ganged playback.
Blackmagic Design Announces New ATEM Mini Pro
ATEM Mini switchers make it easy to create professional multi camera productions for live streaming to YouTube and innovative business presentations using Skype or Zoom. Simply connect ATEM Mini and customers can switch live between 4 high quality video camera inputs for dramatically better quality images. Or connect a computer for PowerPoint slides or gaming consoles. The built in DVE allows exciting picture in picture effects, perfect for commentary. There are loads of video effects too. All ATEM Mini models have USB that works like a webcam so customers can use any streaming software while the ATEM Mini Pro model adds live streaming and recording to USB disks. There's also HDMI out for projectors. Microphone inputs allow high quality desktop and lapel mics for interviews and presentations.