Live from Rio 2016: Riedel Has Olympic-Sized Presence

Riedel Communications once again is at the center of every Olympic sporting event and plenty of the events surround the Olympics, thanks to an agreement with the Rio 2016 Local Organizing Committee that has the company providing a wide range of technologies and services for the games. The company also has 150 engineers on site to make sure the thousands of pieces of technology perform as needed during the event.

Riedel Mediornet and intercom systems are a backbone of of every Rio Olympics event.

For example, once again Riedel Communications technologies, including the Mediornet real-time network for video, audio and data communications, 1,200 wireless radios, hundreds of belt packs, and upwards of 20,000 in-ear monitors, were used for an Olympic Opening Ceremony and they will also be used for the Closing Ceremony.

“Those ceremonies are one huge system on its own, with Mediornet running over CCTV cameras, systems, and monitors,” says Thomas Riedel, Riedel Communications, CEO.

Riedel is also providing 14,000 official radios that are used by the LOC and several other parties, including sponsors who use them for coordination and events.

Communications among officials at events like weightlifting relies on a number of technologies from Riedel Communications.

“Every radio in the venue operations is ours and running 40-plus Mediornet systems is a challenge,” says Riedel. “We did all of the test events for the LOC and also handle the timing signals, and big screen signals for the scoreboards and audio signals for the sound systems at the venues.”

It was 2004 and the Athens Olympics when Riedel found a place providing “gap cabling” that connected the gap between the sound system and video operations and elsewhere. Since then Riedel has played a part with Olympic LOCs who are charged with providing everything from security radios to venue personnel radios to judge and referee communications systems and much more.

“Basically we got the job to do all the connections and Mediornet is an ideal tool to make all the connections as we can drop in nodes and then type in the audio connection to get the signal from here to there and then plug in the equipment,” he adds. “You put the nodes in strategic locations and the system does it all.”

Will most technology providers are based in and around the IBC in Barra, the Riedel team is scattered amidst the venue and has the most personnel at Maracana Stadium. Lastly, Riedel is also providing access systems, accreditation systems, and more to the USA House, the Heineken (Dutch) House, Switzerland House, and German House.

“This is our biggest games ever with more than 400 palettes of equipment, 450 kilometers of cable, and 20 40-foot containers with equipment coming in,” says Riedel.