Industry News

Goodwood Estate enhances custom events with Exterity

Exterity has announced that Goodwood Estate, one of the world’s great centres of sport and entertainment, has deployed its IP video solution to enhance facilities for guests and sponsors.

As part of an ongoing commitment to improving customer experience, Goodwood has upgraded to an end-to-end Exterity IP video solution that will connect screens across the various locations to deliver video to support its high-profile horseracing, motor racing, golf, flying and shooting events.

Deployed by Deliver Events Ltd, a highly regarded specialist in creating IP networks for events, the Exterity solution provides access to broadcast TV and live video from cameras covering events including the Members’ Meeting, Festival of Speed, and the Goodwood Revival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

“Goodwood organises a lot of large-scale, complex events, and needs the flexibility to deliver high-quality video, without compromising on the service,” says Colin Farquhar, CEO at Exterity. “Our IP-based solutions ensure that Goodwood can offer the best experience and tailor content to its guests, enhancing each event and making it even more memorable.”

Prior to the upgrade, Goodwood had traditionally run coaxial cabling over considerable distances to deliver video feeds; a costly and inflexible solution that provided relatively low-quality images. As Di Hudson, Group Head of IT for Goodwood Estate explains: “The Festival of Speed site is 3km end-to-end, which makes routing analogue video quite challenging. By upgrading to a dedicated IP video system from Exterity, we are able to easily supply the main outside broadcast feed over our existing network, as well as directing feeds to our main sponsor pavilions.”

Although the roll-out is still underway, Goodwood has already connected 50 screens to the IPTV network carrying video in support of its recent 76th Members’ Meeting, a world-class historic motor race meeting. The IP video solution will be further expanded to 150 screens to support the Goodwood Revival, a three-day September festival celebrating the halcyon days of motor racing.

“The ability to offer high definition and broadcast-quality video to any screen across the entire site has been a major advantage,” explains Jay Goldson, Founder of Deliver Events Ltd. “We can easily accommodate the needs of our sponsors by customising feeds with additional branding that can be displayed alongside video on demand.”

With the final day of the Festival of Speed taking place on July 15th, coinciding with the FIFA World Cup and Wimbledon finals, Goodwood plans to use the Exterity IP video solution to stream football and tennis coverage alongside Hill Climb Shoot Out to guests’ areas across the site.

“This flexibility is a major benefit for us, and the move towards a dedicated IPTV capability is part of a continual modernisation to ensure the best experience for guests and sponsors across every event we host,” Hudson concludes.

Exterity’s IP video and digital signage systems are in use at a number of high profile events and stadiums, including four of the 10 stadiums that hosted the 2016 UEFA Euros, The Open golf championship, Glamorgan County Cricket Club, Ulster Rugby stadium and Sandown Park (UK); The Hazza bin Zayed Stadium and King Abdullah Sports City in the Middle East; PSV Eindhoven (The Netherlands); RDC Espanyol de Barcelona (Spain); Riverside Stables, Rosehill Racecourse and the Royal Randwick Racecourse (Australia); SV Sandhausen and TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (Germany); and many more.