Crossing borders: Managing a logistically challenging production for World Rally Championship’s Central European Rally
The World Rally Championship (WRC) Central European Rally, which passes through three countries, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany, is unique in its ambition and logistics.
From the start of the rally in Prague, Czech Republic, to the award ceremony in front of the town hall in Passau, Germany, the world’s best rally drivers will pass through an almost 1,600-kilometre route, with more than 300 kilometres of special stages in between to test their skills further.
While the route itself is impressive in its reach, the broadcast is even more so. With the rally crossing all the borders involved from 17 to 20 October 2024, the service park for the entire production is based in Germany, while resources mustered by WRC’s technical services partner, NEP Finland, are everywhere along the circuit.
“The logistical organisation is already difficult enough, which is why we have decided to produce this rally onsite and not like the majority of our rallies or races, which we produce remotely in our service hub in Helsinki, Finland, with NEP Finland”
The rally goes from the Czech Republic into Austria, then onto Germany. This is the second time this cross-border rally has taken place, senior director of content and communication at WRC Promoter, Florian Ruth, says: “There was a rally in this area traditionally before, but the first time we had it crossing borders in the WRC took place last year, and it was absolutely stunning. It is just amazing because you attract a big, big audience; you have huge rally fan communities in all three countries.”
For the Central European Rally, WRC has been working hard on activating the fans across the three countries, looking at editorialising the athletes and teams to drum up a fervour of anticipation around the race. “When it takes place in three countries, you can activate all the communities and fan groups,” continues Ruth.
He notes: “We’ve changed our social strategy with really good results. We’re doing a lot of activations in terms of co-drives; we have a new special programme going on where we put celebrities and influencers in the cars ahead of the rallies to give them a glimpse of the World Rally Championship. We were just in Greece and we had Mark Cavendish there. He enjoyed a co-drive and he’s now one of the biggest rally fans. He had an absolute brilliant time there! And so with stuff like this, we’re doing a lot activations.”
Ruth adds: “Visually it’s quite different stages, a bit of different landscape, different challenges, which is quite nice. It was a really, really big success last year, so we’re all looking really forward to this one.”
Nightmare logistics
While this rally sounds spectacular, logistically it is, “absolutely a nightmare,” according to Ruth. While Rally Sweden sometimes pops over the border into Norway for a couple of stages, this is the only WRC event to attempt such an ambitious production.
On what makes this rally so much harder to produce for TV than a rally in one country, Ruth rolls his eyes, sighs, and expounds: “For our rallies it’s always the distances. When we go to the Czech Republic and we want to have a nice ceremonial start, then of course you go to Prague, but Prague is quite far away from where we are based [in Germany]. And then from Prague for the ceremonial start, we go quite a long distance away for the first stage, then there’s another quite long distance to the second stage, and meanwhile the production is based in another country somewhere completely else and this makes it quite a challenge that in one day we have to cover four locations, service parks, the ceremonial start, and two stages, across two countries and distances of over 400 kilometres. That is quite a challenge.
“And then not only the logistic because of the distances, but also the logistic because of obviously the flight operations for the relay aeroplanes, helicopters and for our drones; there are different rules and obviously different licences for Czech than in Germany and in Austria. So instead of applying in one country, we need to apply for everything in three countries.”
He continues: “Then in addition, we work also with network providers for systems like with our current [mobile broadcast] provider LiveU, and we transmit over 4G or 5G technology, and sometimes we need different SIM cards. There’s quite large additional logistic around this as well.
“So we have different network providers, different flight authorities, and obviously everywhere, different regulations. So it’s not only a logistical but also an organisational paperwork challenge for us.”
iOB Gallery truck
Because of the complexity of the Central European Rally, the entire production is carried out on site. This season, WRC has launched a new gallery truck – the iOB Gallery, which was showcased at IBC 2023 – created by NEP Finland for this and those other rallies where onsite production is a necessity.
Notes Ruth: “Together with NEP we’re still running a hybrid production model for WRC for next year. Out of the 14 races, we will produce nine remotely from Helsinki and five onsite. During this season, we’ve actually built a completely new on onsite production set up with NEP Finland, because we facilitate and use the same production set up also for our other championship, FIA European Rally Championship (ERC). That’s why it still makes sense to have this option for remote and onsite, and that’s why we have the luxury to be able to do both onsite and remotely.”
That new onsite production facility, the iOB Gallery, is designed exactly for WRC and ERC productions. Adds Ruth: “Just recently we launched the new tech trailers for sound, for MCR, picture mixing, colour grading, and so on, and also a brand new complete sound booth and so on. So despite the fact that we’re moving more and more in the direction of remote production, we’re still investing in onsite facilities.”
Ruth goes into more detail on why it is still important for the Central European Rally to be produced onsite. “The Central European Rally is one of the few rallies we still produce onsite just because of the logistics,” explains Ruth. “The logistical organisation is already difficult enough, which is why we have decided to produce this rally onsite and not like the majority of our rallies or races, which we produce remotely in our service hub in Helsinki, Finland, with NEP Finland.”
There are many factors apart from the borders being crossed many times that mean the Central European Rally is an onsite production, from large crowds to transmission delays from the myriad of technologies used – satellite, RF, 4G and 5G – and inclement October weather.
“All that influences our completely RF-based production model,” says Ruth. “And for those circumstances, we just want to be prepared. Going across countries, there is always something that can fail and go wrong. With the distances being covered there can be a massive traffic jam that prevents one of our production facilities from reaching their station in time, so then we need to improvise, and so on. To make those calls last minute, I’d rather be onsite for those really, really challenging rallies at the moment.”
Hybrid production
Partnered with WRC for the production is its technical services provider, NEP Finland. NEP Finland utilises its European resources across the whole NEP group for this taxing rally.
Comments Ruth: “It is possible to use, for example, SNG’s or local smaller trucks in addition to help us, besides the main units we work with anyway. And also, of course, some manpower from NEP Germany can also come and play. And then we also cooperate with national broadcasters, for instance cooperating with the national broadcaster in Czech for the opening ceremony and a few stages, and so on. So it’s quite a hybrid production.”
On the amount of NEP resources required for this event, Ruth says: “We need a bit more trucks and a bit more manpower than usual because of the logistics and the distances, and NEP facilitates that for us. But some of this is also covered with our co-production broadcasters.”
For the Central European Rally, NEP Finland is deploying its onsite setup with two semi-trailers covering the tech and the freight aspects of the production. Onsite it also uses the iOB Gallery. Adds Marco Viitanen, NEP Finland managing director: “Despite the rally taking place in multiple countries, we have one place where we produce the programmes, in Germany. On stages we have our normal setup from a small OB to the single camera LiveU setup. Our philosophy with WRC Promoter is that we always have our core crew – the experienced team – to do the production fulfilled with local talent.”
Viitanen adds: “For 2024 this rally is already easier than it was last year. It’s a great event and great concept to have three countries hosting the last European round of World Rally Championship series 2024. We operate as usual, just the prep work for the event is slightly different this year.”
Rally Japan up next
Next up after the Central European Rally for WRC is the final event of the 2024 season, WRC Rally Japan, which takes place from 21 to 24 November. WRC has very close cooperation agreements with local broadcasters, J Sports and NHK, both of which WRC will be working with once again on co-productions for this rally.
Japan Rally will be produced in partnership with NEP Finland, this time entirely remotely. Just the tech crews, camera crews and WRC editorial teams – commentators, hosts, presenters, and reporters – will be on site.
Ruth comments on the remote production for Japan Rally: “It does indeed feel a bit different to being there on site, but we’ve done so many remote events now that we have good workflows and good alignments and we know how to bridge this. We’ve done the Japan Rally remote a couple of times previously. It’s quite easy to do it fully remote, because we have the infrastructure available to us.”
However, conditions at the Japan Rally can be quite tricky, notes Ruth: “There are a lot of trees along the route, and obviously it’s autumn so the weather can be quite rainy, quite wet leaves, which influences all our RF transmissions. We have long tunnels in the middle of the stages where obviously we don’t get any signals out, and so on, so this rally creates a lot of challenges for us, always.”
Concludes Ruth: “We have a special stadium stage in Japan, and it’s the last rally of the season, so maybe the championship will be decided there, maybe it’ll be earlier.”
The WRC Central European Rally takes place from 17 to 20 October 2024