News St Andrews project captures history in the making

Above: the online viewer even allowed for a little ‘remote bird watching’ from The Open Championship venue!

Breathtaking time-lapse from ‘The Home of Golf’ created from 15,000 images.

AN EXTRAORDINARY feat of engineering for this year’s Open Championship has been captured by one of our bespoke camera systems.

Controlled remotely from our base, our solar-powered set-up took images as our client GL events Seating and Stadia erected the first ever two-tier grandstand at St Andrews.

With a timeframe of just three weeks it was vital that we did not miss a single moment of the intense build. And our market-leading control methods – that allow us to monitor and change the camera system’s performance and settings securely across our mobile network – helped us to seamlessly capture the stand’s construction in over 15,000 broadcast-quality images.

A new image was uploaded every 15 minutes to a special viewing portal we set-up for GL events, allowing them to track the project from anywhere in the world.

And with no mains power available at the site (baring in mind we were installing in the middle of one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious golf courses) we built a specially designed solar-powered system for the capture.

Even the notoriously unpredictable weather changes in Scotland were no match for our robust and environment-controlled time-lapse camera system, which continued to perform in low light, strong winds and torrential rain.

We combined both long-term and rapid-capture time-lapse with video elements to create a complete documentation of the 2,000-capacity structure being built. And you can now watch the video below:

If you look carefully, you can even see the hands of the clock on the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews’ clubhouse speeding around as time flies by.

The main grandstand itself overlooks the historic 18th hole of the Old Course at St Andrews, which is hosting The Open for the 144th time. It is the first two-tier structure for spectators ever erected – holding almost 2,000 people – and has an additional platform for television cameras.

Our clients GL events are once again delighted with the finished video we have produced for them, having previously helped them to document the construction of the new Sir Elton John Stand at Watford FC’s Vicarage Road.

And we are no strangers to working at sporting events and stadia, having previously worked with UEFA for a Champions League night at the Emirates Stadium and at the Britannia Stadium for Stoke City FC.

Above: the view across the 18th with the grandstand complete.