Champions: Inside FabriQ Media Group and Dutch broadcaster NOS' production of the 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships By Heather McLean Monday, March 3, 2025 - 08:19
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Omnisport in Apeldoorn, the venue of the 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships, has undergone a huge metamorphosis with a completely renovated track for the performances of the top European athletes who will compete for the titles from 6 to 9 March
The 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships is taking place from 6 to 9 March 2025 at the Omnisport Apeldoorn arena in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. The competition will feature thirteen men's and thirteen women's events, where the athletes will battle to take the medals home.
Meanwhile, European Athletics, the local organising committee (LOC) and Dutch media production company, FabriQ Media Group, are working hard to make this an unforgettable and inspiring event for viewers at home. FabriQ Media Group is teaming up with the Dutch national broadcaster NOS as a host broadcast production partner, to bring the broadcast to life.
FabriQ is arranging and managing the technical side of the production, supported by outside broadcast services provider, EMG / Gravity Media.
NOS is also the national rights holder for the Netherlands so its directors will produce the world feed, as well as its own. The feeds will be going out in HD, distributed internationally by Eurovision.
Pedigree of production
Tim Verhulsdonck, founder and managing partner at FabriQ Media Group, tells SVG Europe: NOS is providing the directors and is responsible for the editorial output of the event. We are taking care of the full HB production and all the technical things. In this case we're working with EMG, which will provide all needed equipment and cameras and crew the same supplier as 2016 - with this kind of events it's important to work with suppliers you can trust and rely on and with well-experienced crew, short communication lines, and they know what we expect.
FabriQ has a pedigree of producing athletics already, with Verhulsdonck having been part of the production team for the 2016 European Athletics Championships which was held in Amsterdam. Hosted by NOS, Verhulsdonck's role at the time was technical production manager for the broadcasting department.
He comments: That went very well, to be honest. It was a smooth operation, a very big production with 100 cameras-plus. Back then sports event company, TIG Sports & Events was part of the LOC, we worked together very close and in a pleasant way. Then around two or three years ago, TIG asked FabriQ to do the host broadcast production [for the European Athletics Indoor Championships 2025]. So from one to the other!
Preparing for long days
Over the four days of the competition, FabriQ and NOS will produce 10 hours of live television each day. Comments Verhulsdonck: It's quite long. We have the morning and the evening sessions, so it's quite long days. And we are producing four feeds at the same time, so the integrated feeds and three other sport events. So it's a big production; I was just counting [we are using] over 40 cameras.
On the cameras being used, while the production is sticking to tried and tested technologies, some of them are going to deliver cutting edge shots of the athletes. One is a cablecam from FabriQ's partner, Eurogrip.
We have some nice cameras, says Verhulsdonck. We have a 2D cable camera, so it's not like a straight line fly line, but it's also able to go low on the same angle. And at this stage we're trying to make it work as an 3D cable cam, so we have a bigger area to fly in, which would be quite nice. But the venue it's a nice venue but it's small for all the equipment that we are bringing in, and there's a big screen in the middle, so we need to measure where we can put [a 3D cablecam] exactly.
Trucks, crew and challenges
FabriQ has a large rights holder contingent to satisfy for the Championship with over 20 commentary positions in the stadium, around 18 live mixed zone positions, as well as accommodating the press, and two studios plus four announcement platforms. It's quite a lot, notes Verhulsdonck.
The entire production is taking place on site, using two EMG / Gravity Media flagship OB vans, Nova 105 and Nova 106.
Adds Verhulsdonck: In these two OB vans we are generating four galleries. Besides the OB vans, there will be an RF truck for all the wireless cameras that we are using. So we try to be so efficient as possible.
Making the production happen is a 150-strong crew, managed by FabriQ's core team of 6 for this broadcast. EMG / Gravity Media is handling the crew on this occasion as there are several large sporting events going on simultaneously in the Netherlands, including the Champions League, which is making sourcing crew harder than normal. That makes life a bit easier for us because there's a lot of pressure and we are talking about a lot of people, says Verhulsdonck.
On the biggest challenge for FabriQ, Verhulsdonck says it will come in the rig. I think the pressure will be on the rigging days, let's say because we are limited in time and have to do a lot within the venue, so there's a lot of construction work. We start on the 28 February with cabling, and in that timing, the LOC is entering the venue as well; a lot of scaffolding has to be made, all electrics needs to go in, LED screens, audio and additional lights need to go in, so there's a lot of traffic and we will come in [as late as we can] with the trucks and cameras.
So yeah, there's a time pressure. We have two days to rig and to make everything work. That's the challenge. But there's trust! I think the pressure will be on the two rigging days for sure. We are limited in time, but y
