NEP has reported on the successful delivery of this year’s COP26 Summit in Glasgow, alongside its partner Identity.
The support infrastructure included NEP Bow Tie (specialist project management expertise), NEP UK and Ireland (broadcast and transmission), NEP Connect (connectivity) and Creative Technology (live events solutions).
The company said its operations reflected the conference’s sustainability and climate mission, with regards to the company’s technologies, deployment and integration of hardware and personnel.
This included employing local freelance creatives, encouraging crew to use public transport, electric shuttle buses provided by Identity, and water flasks and reusable cups given to team members. A sustainability tracker was also used in collaboration with Identity to accurately gauge the production’s carbon footprint.
NEP said the media centre and press conference were operational 24 hours a day with coverage to over 200 displays, using 350 IPTV boxes and 450 displays across the site.
Meanwhile NEP UK provided an IP-based routing system and support equipment with nodes for all the plenary chambers and areas as part of the host broadcast solution. The control rooms used 31 HD cameras and six vision mixer gallery set-ups, one of which was virtual.
NEP Ireland were also on hand with EVS and File Publishing expertise, said the company, masterminding the Media Management and Archiving, as well as transcoding and handing off media files to international broadcasting organisations.
A state-of-the-art satellite uplink truck was supplied by NEP Connect. Three satellite channels were provided on a 24/7 basis for the opening of the Summit, backed up by three channels of LiveU. All feeds were delivered into the NEPC Network Operations Centre at MediaCityUK, which then passed all signals to BT Tower for collection by multiple broadcasters around the world.
“Working with NEP Group in the planning and delivery of COP26 Broadcast Services should be considered a blueprint for collaborative and innovative agency-supplier operations,” said Anna McInerney, media and broadcast director, COP26. “Agile and responsive to change, the team from NEP not only delivered on the initial brief but could always be relied upon to find solutions to inevitable last-minute changes in scope.”
“On-the-ground, there was a buzz about the place as people were excited and proud to be involved in delivering COP26 and feel part of something special,” added Martin Swain, head of engineering and technical projects, NEP Bow Tie. “We have been working with Identity to build a relationship built on mutual trust and technical brilliance, so that they knew we would deliver to an exceptional standard and care.”
