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The World Snooker Championship hosted at the famous Crucible Theatre in Sheffield has been a consistent presence on AE Live’s calendar for over 25 years. Even though this year’s tournament was put in doubt due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was thankfully given the green light to commence and was rescheduled to the end of July.
A new date was not the only change to this year’s tournament with the presentation element of the coverage being moved from venue to IMG Studios in Stockley Park. This decision was made to reduce the amount of staff required on-site to ensure social distancing guidelines could be adhered to.
The move away from the traditional method of producing all coverage on-site has meant AE Live staff were permanently located in both Sheffield and IMG Studios for the duration of the 17-day long tournament. Onsite, AE Live operators were producing match graphics and scoring every pot of the tournament, and sending this match data back to Stockley Park for commentary use. AE Live operators based at IMG Studios were also providing host presentation graphics for BBC Sport’s coverage of the championship.
AE Live’s project manager, Mark Crawley, commented “AE Live are really proud to have been covering this event for so many years. Despite having to wait a bit longer to get started this year, it’s great to be back. Like everyone, our operators have had to adapt to new ways of working, with our presentation graphics coming from Stockley Park and our match operators in Sheffield. We are really pleased the tournament could be played this year and we’re looking forward to hopefully many more to come.”