Reached
Live Shows
Pieces of Content Created
For over a decade the Diageo World Class Bartender competition has been the pinnacle of success for the drinks and hospitality industry.
Fifty-five bartenders from all over the world compete in a series of high pressure challenges in front of judges and a live studio audience. culminating in a live awards show to crown the weekend’s champions.
Working alongside the creative agency Chorus, Flux were asked to deliver a world class broadcast across three days. Giving fans and industry experts around the world an all access experience across four stages. Capturing all the thrills and… ahem, spills.
With 4 challenges happening simultaneously, there was a lot to follow. Fortunately, we were on hand to share our knowledge on how audiences consume content over a prolonged period of time designing a slick show format, script and run of show that could capture all of the goings on.
We decided the best approach would be to deliver a central curated broadcast, anchored by a studio team, providing expert opinion and lively discussion as the bartenders moved between the challenges. However, we also felt it was important that the online audience could curate their own experience, following their favourite competitor and decided that alongside the curated main show, we would also deliver all 4 challenge areas via ‘red button’ style live feeds.
On-site, our team rigged 4 individual production galleries to capture and live broadcast our red button coverage, these feeds were fed into a central OB truck where the live studio show was being produced. A total of 12 cameras were dotted throughout the venue to capture the live action using a mix of broadcast and lightweight cine cameras.
As soon as the main competitions were wrapped, we repositioned 5 of our cameras for use in the awards show. Seamlessly moving from the competitions into a glossy and awards ceremony to celebrate our champions.
Alongside the live content, we also provided a roaming content team who’s first job was to watch the bartenders compete and travel across three countries before arriving in Glasgow. All the content captured was ingested by an on site team of editors who produced beautiful idents, interviews and sizzle pieces for both social media and use in our live feeds.
A solid creative proposal and technical delivery meant that the content produced was a huge success, with organisers and audiences agreeing the quality had never been higher. The live event and awards streams reached over 5 million people and garnered over 2.5 million views on Facebook, with almost 200,000 impressions on YouTube.
Outside of this, a plethora of content was created for Diageo socials which was used for months after the event had finished. The umbrella in the drink if you will..