Event ICT
The Federal Wrestling and Alpine Festival is an event of superlatives. Around 400,000 people were expected in Pratteln. The FWAF has long recognised that digitalisation offers numerous new opportunities. As a king partner, Swisscom helped to fully exploit the opportunities of networked Switzerland.
As Swisscom, we supported the Swiss Federal Wrestling and Alpine Festival 2022 in Pratteln. "As a long-standing partner, we are again supporting the FWAF in all phases this year - from A for AV technology to Z for central video direction," explains Jürgen Lochbrunner, General Project Manager Events at Swisscom Broadcast. As the overall technical manager, Swisscom will ensure that telephony, mobile communications, WLAN and high-speed Internet all work. For the visitors, but above all for the men and women in the background - because they need very special solutions.
Around 40 kilometres of fibre optic cables were laid on the Pratteln site. These formed the backbone for all the technical solutions that were in use during the ESAF. Thanks to two specially constructed fibre optic connections, the lines were geo-redundant. This meant that faults from the second connection could be intercepted and a total failure prevented.
"Our temporary event network is for the wrestling federations and for all partners," explains Lochbrunner. In addition to the various sponsors, these also include the catering businesses and Swiss television. Nowadays, without an internet connection, neither a cash register system nor the transmission of video signals, audio and lighting technology or the logistics supply for fan articles and drinks can run. The SRF, the various LED walls on the site, the public viewing on Barfüsserplatz in Basel or the surveillance cameras were all also dependent on interference-free transmission. "In Swisscom's central control room, we collect all the video signals and then distribute them. If the fibre optic network is the spinal cord, then our central control room is the brain of this system."
The blue-light organisations in the command post, such as the police or the ambulance service, were also supplied. Thanks to the surveillance cameras from Swisscom Broadcast, they were able to recognise when the flow of visitors came to a standstill somewhere. This enabled them to divert it before it became a traffic jam - or worse, a panic. An evacuation would also have been supported in this way.
"The entire OC and the media centre obviously need workstations from where they can orchestrate or follow what is happening," Jürgen Lochbrunner continues. "We have set up these temporary workstations for them - everything is there from the monitor to the internet connection. All they have to do is sit down and get started."
But Swisscom also provided other important building blocks for the success of the FWAF: For example, the entire participant management for VIPs, employees, athletes or the media, as well as the radios so that helpers and the OC could always be in contact with each other. Thanks to a "push-to-talk" solution, radio communication is child's play, because modern radios are much more like smartphones. Not only can you communicate by voice, but you can also send messages or pictures.
"Besides, we simply fit together well. Because when you think of Switzerland, you don't just think of cows, chocolate and watches, but also of the Schwingfest and Swisscom!"
Jürgen Lochbrunner, General Project Manager Events at Swisscom Broadcast
"For us, the FWAF is one of the biggest events this year," Lochbrunner says happily. "Besides, we simply fit together well. When you think of Switzerland, you don't just think of cows, chocolate and watches, but also of the wrestling festival and Swisscom!
