The trucks are owned by Alfacam, a Belgium-based TV facilities company. Since the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, Alfacam has worked for the host broadcaster of the Olympics, known as Olympic Broadcast Services (OBSV). The company used a total of 14 trucks for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.
“The coverage we did of the Olympics was the ‘host’ coverage. This means that every rights holder in every country used our images,” said Frederik Detollenaere, Alfacam’s head of planning. “Because OBSV doesn’t want 50 different TV teams on one venue, they use one or two trucks per sport and sell the images to the different broadcasters. So that means that everyone who was watching images of a sports competition, such as the ski jump, was watching the images sent through our truck.”
Snowboard, freestyle ski, biathlon, ski jump, cross country and the Whistler medals ceremony were among the Olympic events that Alfacam covered for a global audience.
Event organizers and TV-production companies around the world are major customers of Alfacam. Their expertise and equipment is used around the world is also used to provide live coverage of sporting events, such as the Winter Olympics, and major concerts. That keeps their trucks on the move, working with ports and shipping lines to assure the timely delivery of their equipment for their next assignment.
“It was a pleasure for us to work with the Port of Tacoma,” said Detollenaere. “Everyone was very professional, friendly and helpful. We knew that our expensive trucks were in really good hands.”
A total of 12 Alfacam trucks were shipped through the Port of Tacoma on the Oberon, a Wallenius Lines vessel. Five of the trucks are headed to Durban, South Africa, and seven are going to Zeebrugge, Belgium.
The trucks headed to Durban will be transshipped in Manzanillo, and are expected to arrive in Durban early May. The trucks bound for Belgium are scheduled to arrive in mid-April. The Durban-bound trucks will be used by a German broadcaster (SWR/ZDF) during the World Cup soccer competition in South Africa in June.
