As Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia celebrated a second consecutive win at the CEV Champions League Volley 2026 Men’s Final Four in Turin earlier this month, Infront Productions, the exclusive media rights partner of the CEV, was also celebrating delivering another successful elite European volleyball event.

The tournament is the latest in a relationship that stretches back more than 20 years, and one that has evolved significantly over that time.

Alessandro Lonati, director, Infront Productions, says: “Our partnership with the CEV began over 20 years ago and we have acted as its exclusive media rights partner since 2020. Today, our role is to ensure that elite volleyball isn’t just broadcast, but it meets and exceeds the highest standards for fans.”

Beyond the technical requirements, Infront Productions takes the lead in creating the overall editorial concept for all CEV events, ensuring a consistent and premium narrative across the entire season.

“For this event, our goal was to deliver a world-class broadcast: visually spectacular, emotionally engaging, and technically at the cutting edge of indoor sports production. We brought a unique creative layer to the table: making Turin, the host city, a real character in the coverage, not just a backdrop. The city is stunning and we felt it deserved to be part of the show. 

“So we built a series of segments shot at these iconic locations, with AR graphics integrated directly into the images, that run at the opening of the broadcast and during set breaks. The idea is simple: bring the beauty of Turin inside the arena, make the audience feel where they are. CEV embraced it immediately.”

To achieve this visually engaging broadcast, the production scaled to include 19 cameras, drones, and augmented reality all designed to enhance the storytelling across all four matches of the tournament as well as the awards ceremony. 

“We have 19 cameras in total, including a Jimmy Jib, a 3D cablecam and a standard drone for external coverage,” he adds. “We’re also using EVS XtraMotion, which effectively turns every camera into a super slow-motion source and lets us reduce depth of field for a cinematic look. An RF steadicam and a gimbal-mounted Sony FX3 complete the picture, giving us fluid, film-style movement you don’t usually see in volleyball broadcasts.”

The external drone provides shots of the city, the venues and the atmosphere around the arena, while the 3D cablecam flies over the court. The jib offers elevation, the FX3 gimbal delivers cinematic movement, and the RF steadicam provides fluid court-level coverage. “It’s a very layered visual language,” says Lonati.

New for this year is an AR graphics pipeline integrated across multiple moving camera platforms, provided by Gravity Media, which also supplied the OB truck for the event.

“The AR system is integrated directly into the cablecam and Jimmy Jib, so the augmented reality elements move dynamically with the camera,” he explains. “It feels alive rather than pasted on. We’re also using it for the Turin city segments, layering AR graphics onto shots of iconic locations around the city to connect the host city to the event in a visually seamless way.”

Infront used a full suite of AR graphics throughout the broadcast, including match title, team rosters, starting six, timeouts, challenge replays, player stats, and head-to-head comparisons between the best players on court. 

“Everything is rendered in AR rather than traditional overlays, so it integrates into the picture rather than sitting on top of it,” he adds. “The idea is to give viewers contextual depth at every moment of the match — from the opening lineup to the deciding point — without ever interrupting the rhythm of the game. It’s data, but it adds value to the show.”

While integrating AR across multiple moving camera platforms is always complex, the biggest challenge faced by the Infront team was time.

“We gained access to the arena just a day-and-a-half before going live, which meant coordinating with all the suppliers working simultaneously in the same space — lighting, audio, court construction, cablecam installation, camera rigging, and full cabling across a very large venue. Everyone had to work around each other at pace, with almost zero margin for error. It was intense, but the team delivered,” Lonati adds.