Drifting is the motorsport that is most present in our lives. We began drift live production in 2015, as the official Hungarian live broadcasting team for the European series then operating under the name King of Europe (KOE Drift). The brand name has since changed to Drift Kings, but the essence remains the same: nearly thousand horsepower cars drifting through a fixed course in pairs. The production of live broadcasts for this sport is most challenging due to the smoke, as the race cars would look good from the outside curve, but that’s where the wheels throw out the tire smoke, obscuring the second car.
Site visit for the drift live broadcast
During our recent site visit at Máriapócs, Hungary prior to a Drift Kings broadcast, it became clear that we needed to deploy our compact broadcasting car. Due to safety regulations, the size of the TV compound is rather limited, and on top of that, we had to share it with a Romanian broadcasting car and a Polish DSNG, so we took the smallest modular broadcasting car possible.
Drift live production challenges
The biggest challenges were the heat, the smoke, and the length of the race stretching from early afternoon into the night. Nevertheless, the Rabócsi Ring can be well covered with 3-4 cameras, so we produced a perfect broadcast from 10 am to 10 pm to the satisfaction of the promoter and the sponsors, complete with slow motion, replay, highlights videos, and broadcast sports GFX. I don’t know how much the race cars used up of what, but our 6-person crew went through 15 liters of cooled mineral water.
Our task was not only to serve the Drift Kings viewers but also to provide the feed for the Polish Drift Association’s DSNG car, which received Polish commentary and was watched by Polish viewers. We’re beyond the live production of an exciting technical sport. We look forward to the next one.