The Maryborough Gift Receives The TV Treatment With Fresh Live-Broadcasting
The Maryborough Highland Games, home of The Maryborough Gift, is Australia’s oldest professional running and cultural event.
Celebrating it’s 160th year in 2023, the Carnival is held annually on New Year’s day and features some of Australia’s best runners, including Olympians past and present.
Following a 2 year hiatus due to COVID 19, The 2023 edition was gearing up to be bigger than ever before.
To reach this goal, the Maryborough Highland Society, the promoter’s the event, engaged Fixon Media Group to produce a TV-Standard live-broadcast of the carnival.
Client:
Maryborough Highland Society
Year:
2023-Present
Location:
Maryborough, Victoria
The Challenge
The Maryborough Gift, the pro-running aspect of the Highland Games, is one of the largest meets on the Victorian Athletic League calendar.
The meet is regarded as a ‘classic’ with $15,000 of prize money on offer for the winners of the men’s and women’s gifts, ran over 120m.
As a result, the perceived ‘aura’ around the Maryborough Gift is significant, and requires a digital presence to match it.
The Maryborough Gift had previously never explored live-broadcasting options, outside of a traditional local radio broadcast.
Given the magnitude of the carnival, a live-broadcast was needed that would capture everything the day had to offer, including:
- Over 80 professional running races
- Strongman events
- Pipe Band performances
- The famous Girl On The Drum spectacular
The Solution
We proposed a 4-camera live-broadcast solution that would include coverage of all major events throughout the carnival.
This included one drone camera angle, used periodically throughout the day for ‘beauty shots’ and to provide an alternative and immersive camera angle for distance races.
We also integrated a roaming camera angle to capture live interviews with race winners, and provide finish line reactions.
As with all live-broadcasts, audio is extremely important. With the professional races including live in-venue commentary, we built a commentary suite for VAL race caller, Oliver Wurm, and included his commonalty within the broadcast.
Professional running features races from 8 runners over sprint distances, through to 30+ runners over middle distance races.
To identify runners, each runner has their own unique colour bib. Each runner also has their own handicap.
Both bib colour and handicap information is critical for viewers to be aware of.
To cover this information for viewers, we crafted a suite of 160+ live graphics, which were displayed throughout the day, alongside race timers.
The Result
Through the annual live-broadcasts of the carnival, The Maryborough Highland Games are able to reach an Australian wide viewing audience.
This continues to assist the carnival in building their digital presence, as they aim to grow bigger and bigger, year on year.
At the conclusion of each carnival, a highlights package is created and published to YouTube, with highlights of every single broadcasted race throughout the day, allowing for on-demand and continual viewing of the day’s racing.
We invite you to view the live-broadcast and highlights package below.
The 2024 Live-Broadcast
The 2024 Highlights Package
Moving Forward
We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Maryborough Highland Society for the live-broadcast of The Maryborough Highland Games for the years to come.