EUROPEAN JUDO CHAMPIONSHIP

COMBAT CONDITIONS AT THE EUROPEAN JUDO CHAMPIONSHIP 2020

The European Judo Championship had its original date on April 28 this year. Given the situation, client had to postponed it to September. However, it could not take place until two months later, in November.

One of the most difficult event preparations we had to face in the coronavirus era. Due to restrictions and exceptions, we had to move it several times and with changing conditions also adapt it as much as possible.

"We wanted to implement the event with confidence and not to lose half a year of work, so we tried to be really ready for everything," said Milan Hošťálek, project manager of this event.

That is why the entire AV MEDIA EVENTS had to divide its team into two groups before the event, which had several rules and divided roles. In the first group were technicians who prepared the whole event and at the time of the event they could not move around the playing area at all. They had their own entrance and their movement during the event was limited to the auditorium. The second group of technicians passed the first Covid test three days before the event. The day before the event, they had to go to the test again and also entered the isolation in the hotel -where we booked rooms only for athletes and staff associated with the European Championship. For the whole three days of the event, we transported the second group from the hotel by bus directly to the O2 arena and back again in the evening. At the hotel, visiting each other was not allowed and every room received food in paper bags behind the door in order to avoid any contact.

Let’s have a look to the technical background.

We have secured:

Technical background for EJU (European Judo Union), podiums for technical background of referees, screens with the order of participants, radios for referees, lighting and sound of the warm-up area, LED panels with scoreboards at TATAMI (= wrestling mats for JUDO).
Effect lighting of ceremonies, entrance gates, TATAMI sound system, check-in of lights, follow-up spots, hall cubes and advertising parameters in cooperation with the ČT SPORT transmission car, which broadcast the matches live.
Illumination of the press zone for the media, equipment of a streaming workplace for remote conversations of journalists with wrestlers.

Client confirmed final date only fourteen days before the event. Until then, everyone could only wait and hope. Thanks to the exemptions granted, the championship took place on November 19.

We streamed the matches via the ZOOM platform. Satellite transmitted the live broadcast, which viewers could watch on Czech Television. The technology weighed whole 165 tons - it would fit into three full trucks.

For the curious ones we mention our hardware and software:

0.5 km of Milos and Libera trusses
about 30 engines, including 2 kinetic Cyberhoists
over 130 NIVTEC podium boards
70m2 LEDs Gloshine Legend 3.9
video matrix switcher Barco E2 event Master
Millumin media server on MacPro platform
over 5km of optical and SDI cables
Line array L-acoustics speakers, Yamaha mixing consoles
Shure ULX-D wireless microphones
light counter GRAND MA 2 lite
MA 2port and 4port node
24x ROBE Spiider
8x ROBE BMFL Wash BEAM
20x ROBE BMFL BLADE
6x ROBE MegaPointe
8x ROBE LB150
4x Robert Juliat Merlin Follow spot
for the needs of the Judo Association we delivered 3 Full HD cameras Panasonic P2 380
for streaming 2 Sony 4K PXW-Z280 cameras

We are glad that the event took place in the end, despite the demanding and changeable environment and constant changes. We tried to be flexible to meet client's needs and regulations. Client was very excited about our approach. “It was a great honor to work with you. I will do any other event with you at any time," he said.

We hope that the restrictions will remain at least at this point and further sports matches are ahead of us.