Gold medal performance from PRG Europe

NBC Universal offered unprecedented coverage of the Torino Winter Olympic Games from its purpose built TV studios in Turin this year. Helping to ensure that NBC Universal could effectively broadcast live, 24 hours per day, was lighting equipment supplier PRG Europe.
PRG Europe’s client, New York based Lighting Design Partnership (LDP), already Olympic TV veterans, contracted the company to provide lighting for all four of its temporary studios in Italy. These included NBC Studio’s 1 and 2 plus the Palavela and the Palasports Olympico, which serviced the ice-skating and the hockey respectively.
Lighting designer Steve Brill, owner of LDG, knew that whatever he designed artistically would have to be backed up by reliable equipment in the best of condition. After some deliberation he chose PRG Europe. LDP has previously won an Emmy for its contribution to NBC’s TV lighting in Athens.
The 24/7 coverage, often live and broadcast over both conventional and Internet media, demanded technology, equipment and people in peak condition. With much of the material being broadcast live from NBC Studio 1 and 2 they could not afford for anything to go wrong.
Due to the relentless schedule and the need for robust equipment, Studio 1 and 2’s lighting kit consisted mainly of conventional fixtures. These included numerous Arri Fresnels – 150W – 1K, various Arri softlights 1 and 2K, ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, plus a large number of Color Kinetic Color Blasts. Avo Art 4000 dimmers in the main studios and ETC SmartPacks in the smaller venues took care of dimming, whilst two ETC Expressions in Studio’s 1and 2, and two Zero 88 Alcoras in the remote studios provided programming and control. PRG Europe also supplied all the grip kit - and there was plenty of it!
Much of the TV specific kit came from PRG in the USA and specifically from PRG’s New Jersey branch.
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