Sunset+Vine went straight into the production of Channel 5’s World Seniors Snooker Tour, which provides a competitive circuit for iconic players and amateurs aged 40 and over, off the back of the Snooker World Championship for BBC Sport. Both tournaments took place at the legendary Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, UK, with just one day in between the two.

Sunset+Vine used technical services provider, Cloudbass, for both the Worlds [18 April to 4 May] and the Seniors [6 to 10 May]. This meant that it was logistically easier to switch from the larger Worlds production for BBC Sport to the smaller – but perfectly formed – Seniors, which was bigger this year for the first time, working over a two-table setup instead of one.

SVG Europe caught up with Sunset+Vine’s Titus Hill, executive producer, Allia McDonald, production manager and Trevor Fegan, technical producer, who worked across both events.

Expanded coverage

2025 marked Channel 5’s first year of the Seniors and the results were impressive, so much so that this year Channel 5 and World Seniors decided to expand their broadcast coverage.

Comments Hill: “Last year went well for them and I think was 5’s first tentative test of doing snooker on the channel. Since then they’ve expanded to do more snooker, including some World Snooker tour events, but this year they wanted to expand the Seniors. Last year where there was only one table, so it was a much easier transition [from the Worlds to the Seniors] because the Worlds finishes with one table and then we just carried on with that one table setup. This year it was moving back to two tables, so there was a lot of stuff to do between the two tournaments.

“We were lucky this year because they brought in a lot of big names that weren’t there last year; traditionally, the top older players who are still playing won’t compete in the Seniors because they’re still competing at the top end [of the main snooker tour]. But this year they had the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Ali Carter, Stuart Bingham, and various others who are still playing very successfully on the main tour. As soon as you’ve got Ronnie involved in anything, it brings a lot of eyeballs and a lot of interest from the snooker community. So editorially, it was a very easy sell this year because you had a much bigger event with more names, and a lot more recognisable names for viewers.”

The qualification for the Seniors can mean amateur players face up to well known professionals. Says Hill: “There are certain players who come from different parts of the world who have to win their regional championships to get an invite to the World Seniors, and then suddenly they’re able to have the opportunity to play against these really major snooker stars. It was great for them and it makes it an easy editorial story for us.

“There’s 65 year old from Australia, Roger Farebrother, who’d managed to win the [2026 Asia-Pacific Seniors Snooker Championship] and suddenly he finds himself playing against Ali [Carter], playing against these players who are still at the top end of the game. There was a lot to get into editorially to keep people’s interests there.”

Camera Plan

Crucial planning

As to how the team made the transition from one broadcaster to another within one day, and also from a bigger budget to a smaller budget, the key was in the planning. The important thing was to make sure that the rigging day between the two events went smoothly, and, “to make sure that everyone knows what needs to stay and what can go,” says Hill.

“We had weekly meetings from about two months out to just make sure everyone was on the same page and everyone knew what was happening, because it is a very tight turnaround,” Hill adds.

Says Hill on the transition from the Worlds to the Seniors: “The world’s finished on the Monday. On Tuesday, Cloudbass, who are our OB company, had to take various trucks out because it’s a smaller operation on the Seniors. And so Trevor and Allia were busy on the Tuesday just ensuring that nothing that was meant to stay in, left, and extra bits that needed to go in, did. And then we started on the Seniors on the Wednesday.”

McDonald comments on how the team worked across both events back to back: “We do have to treat them as separate productions. Because they’re so close together, people tend to merge them in one. The Worlds is a much bigger production than the Seniors. And so what we do to make it easier for us is we retain the same facilities provider, we retain most of the freelancers, and the same graphics company, so that makes it easier for us in terms of transitioning.

“From a budget point of view, obviously we have to work within whatever Channel 5 is willing to spend for the Seniors. So despite the synergies and the sharing of facilities and crew, we do have to treat them as two completely separate productions,” she says.

Cameras on a pedestal

The table set ups of the now expanded Seniors caused a few challenges for the team. Fagan says: “We’re going from a 17 TX day production to a five TX day with a very short time between the two events. It’s six camera table one coverage for the Seniors, with the fact that they’ve upscaled the actual tournament to two tables initially, then back down to one table [in the latter stages]. [Last year] we had one table for the final for the BBC event [the Worlds], back to two tables [for the Seniors] and then to one table overnight [for the semi finals and final], which we hadn’t done previously. So that was an extra thing to think about.”

Adds Fegan on the second table: “We had plenty of conversations with Channel 5 about whether this should just be one camera coverage, but thankfully they went with three cameras because the two pedestal cameras on the floor give you those great angles and effectively better coverage for the customer at home really to see what’s going on.”

Coverage of the second table was streamed independently to the 5 app and the 5 website, which was new for both the broadcaster and for Sunset+Vine.

The main camera set up for snooker is, “that main camera one, which is locked off on the table lengthways, then you have your two cameras on pedestals [peds] which move around on wheels, which are the cameras that give you all your closeups and give the coverage its character in a way,” Hill notes.

Hill adds that those two ped cameras are valuable, but the people operating them have to know what they are doing to ensure the viewer at home understands what is going on.

He explains: “You have to be very skilful with those ped operators because when it’s a two camera set up as it was for the first time in the Worlds, there’s not much space and you don’t want to get in the way of the players, but you’ve got to try and get the best shots to show if the ball is going to get past another ball. So those low cameras give you those shots that show you whether a player is snookered or whether a shot is on. They’re very skilful camera operators and you can do coverage really with just those three cameras, the top shot and those two moving around.”

Hill comments on the cameras for the Seniors: “There was a camera two [ped], which is again, a high shot, but one which can zoom in and move around. And then we had a wide as well to give a beauty shot of the arena. And then we had a second table with just the three camera coverage, which was just being streamed to the Channel 5 app.”

Team challenges

McDonald says the long hours of this tournament are her largest issue. She explains: “One of the biggest challenges with this production is the hours, because they’re quite long sessions, and unlike a football match where you can go 90 minutes and maybe get a bit of overtime, it’s whenever the match ends. So even though I might put on a call sheet, off-air is 10.30pm, there is the possibility that off-air might be an hour or an hour and a half later, which we did have happen.

“It’s about having these conversations upfront with the crew, people understanding that you might be on site for upwards of 10 or 12 hours, and finding a way to properly compensate them and also just ensuring that there is support. I think we are lucky that, similar to football, you have freelancers who are very much happy to work on snooker and do these long hours.”

She adds: “We have runners who are there to look after [the crew] throughout the hours and just constantly checking on people if we have to double shift, because it’s just not feasible to have freelancers on for three or four days doing 13 hours a day. So it’s looking at the length of days and ensuring that you cover all issues that might flag up ahead of the tournament.”

Around 60% of the freelancers McDonald used on the Seniors had also been working on the Worlds. Adds McDonald: “The funny thing is, most of them look forward to doing the Seniors. There were so many emails I got ahead of us having confirmation on the Seniors, saying, “I’d love to stay on if it’s happening, please let me know”.”

Hill says that despite an issue with one of the tables during the Seniors which meant some improvisation was needed for the organisers and the production, it went well: “Overall I think it went very well. We managed to work with all the challenges we had. There were some challenges within the actual tournament; one of the tables that they brought in, which are made with massive slates, broke as one of the slates dropped, so that table became unplayable on night two. They had to set up in the practice room to play a game, which was then effectively done behind closed doors, more or less. They brought in a few chairs so that family members could come and watch. We obviously had a camera in there so we could film it, but that couldn’t go out live.”

When table two was deemed faulty, a match between Matthew Stevens and Dominic Dale was stopped before resuming on table one once a match between Ali Carter and Roger Farebrother had finished. Then a match between Alfie Burden and Igor Figueiredo took place on in the practice room, sparking controversy in some quarters as Burden, the defending champion, did not get the ‘walk-on’ glory that he would have had if the game had gone ahead in the main room of the Crucible, live on television.

Continues Hill: “So there were challenges that came along, but it was a very good broadcast. We were lucky in that Ronnie O’Sullivan made it all the way to the final and played a very exciting brand of snooker and Channel 5 were very happy with the outcome.”

McDonald notes: “I am still new to the game of snooker, but there were some quality matches in comparison to what we did it last year. It’s great when I open my inbox two days later and it’s filled with invoices, but there are people saying, “I had a great time. I would love to be back next year”. It’s great when crew members walk away from an event that they have enjoyed despite the issues that we had, despite the time constraints at the start, and the long hours. But the feedback from the crew has been really nice and that’s always how you want people to walk away from it.”

Adds Fegan on the Seniors: “It was definitely a testing situation, but luckily we had time to plan ahead, to get the right people involved. It’s basically having those plans available to help the promoter and then ultimately to help our client Channel 5 delivering a top event.”

Channel 5 coverage of the World Seniors Snooker Tour took place from 6 to 10 May