The North Face Climb Festival

Psicobloc (aka Deep Water Soloing) is a form of solo climbing over a deep body of water.

The inquiry came in about three weeks before The North Face Climb Festival Chicago was to start. The tournament organizers wanted to have the competition livestreamed on The North Face’s YouTube channel for the world to watch.

The initial tournament concept was to have the climbing wall on a barge on Lake Michigan, which would be attached to the side of Navy Pier. On its surface, this is an incredible idea and as far as we know, has never been done before. World-renowned climbers from around the globe would come to Chicago and compete. Once we heard about the event plans, we were all in.

In a matter of three short weeks, we pulled off all of the pre-production work needed for the broadcast. All of the graphics were created, site layouts were drawn, and broadcast plans were finalized.

Come the morning of the event, it started pouring rain in Chicago. We arrived at Navy Pier in Chicago to setup for the livestream broadcast and everything became more and more soaked throughout the day. Rain and electronics generally don’t do well together. However, we kept everything going for an amazing broadcast.

We had four hours to setup for the show, which included 5 cameras, a drone, host area, and multiple audio sources throughout the venue. Thanks to our mobile video production studio, setup was a lot simpler because Master Control is always setup and ready to go inside our 24′ mobile production studio.

Under a tent, the two show hosts were able to take viewers through the whole event. Winners would also join the hosts for commentary throughout the day.

Our aerial drone stole the show again with it’s beautiful aerial views of the wall, the Chicago skyline, and the golden orange sunset that graced the skyline toward the end of the broadcast.

The livestream totaled a little over five hours of broadcasting from Navy Pier. Our crew of 12 pulled off an amazing broadcast and we’re looking forward to livestreaming more events like this!

Watch the full livestream here: