BBC Outside Broadcasts captures Glastonbury 2005 in HDCAM

BBC Outside Broadcasts provided extensive coverage for Glastonbury 2005, the UK’s biggest music festival, recording on HDCAM. Working with BBC Music Entertainment and Glastonbury Festivals, it provided domestic live coverage on BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four, plus international coverage for Japanese broadcaster, NHK, and an American channel. There were also two interactive streams.

For the first time two stages were acquired in High Definition for international broadcasters and to support worldwide DVD sales. It is the first time the Other stage has been captured in HD and the second year for the Pyramid stage, which featured Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs and Basement Jaxx. In all, four stages at the festival were captured by BBC Outside Broadcasts; the Pyramid stage, the Other stage, the John Peel stage and the Jazz stage.

BBC Outside Broadcasts used its multi-format truck – Unit 2 – to capture the Other stage. The truck has a total of eight HDC-950 HD camera systems recording on HDCAM. A further HD production unit, which like Unit 2 uses Sony HD cameras, was hired in from Outside Broadcast in Belgium to capture the Pyramid stage, also recording on HDCAM. BBC Outside Broadcasts crew staffed both vehicles. In addition, BBC Outside Broadcasts used its recent addition to the fleet – Link 21 – to provide the main hub for transmission, uplinking pictures live from the festival back to Television Centre for play out on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Three. BBC Outside Broadcasts’ R16 unit captured and uplinked pictures for transmission for BBC Four.

Lightning & Floods

Peter Taylor, Engineering Manager, BBC Outside Broadcasts, says: “The breadth of the BBC Outside Broadcasts fleet at Glastonbury is diverse – from a single camera offering through to full operation, presentation and transmission facilities. Glastonbury and Wimbledon overlap and we’re unique in being able to deliver coverage of two prestigious, international live events simultaneously. Wimbledon alone involves three production units, two recording units and 53 cameras!”

In the event, BBC Outside Broadcasts and Radio Resources rescued dozens of hours of output from some of the worst freak weather conditions in festival history. Lightning cut power to the site on Friday and flood waters rose, the BBC Two tent had to be abandoned, cameras and cables dragged from under water and a whole unit re-rigged in the BBC events marquee, as it had to be pitched on higher ground.

Safety advisors were on hand on advise on handling submerged mains cabling and lighting sets. Taylor's BBC Outside Broadcasts team completed the rebuild in half a day, re-routing a BBC generator in transit and sending out for hair dryers to dry the kit that would keep the shows on air. In the end, only one act was not recorded as planned from the main stage and everything else was covered as scheduled for BBC Two, Three and Four, Top of the Pops and three interactive streams.

"The festival's priority was getting the stages up and running, so we were on our own," Taylor says. "We had a crisis meeting with executive producer Mark Cooper and BBC Two producer Alison Howe and decided to battle on, even though we thought we’d have no mains power till Saturday.” Taylor saves special praise for the riggers who dug out a flooded gully over two days to rescue connections for the hoist camera, just in time to capture those wide HD shots of Coldplay on Saturday night – “the shots that are Glastonbury on TV”.