SVG Brings Together Esports Production Community at Fifth-Annual Industry Summit in Los Angeles

With in-person events again on the schedule, workflows reflect lessons learned during the pandemic

The fifth-annual SVG Esports Production Summit descended on Los Angeles on Thursday, drawing more than 200 esports-production pros for a full day of panels, keynotes, case studies, and technology showcases. The event, which took place at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, delved deep into the next-gen workflows used by today’s top esports-event producers, leagues, and streaming platforms.

The day kicked off with the “State of the Esports-Production Industry” panel, which featured Joseph Lynch, group head of content and programming, EA (as well as co-chair of the Esports Production Committee); Andrew Lane, director, broadcast and production, FACEIT; and Ryan Thompson, co-founder and chief production officer, Esports Engine. Live esports production has undergone a seismic shift as a result of the pandemic, and the way live events are produced has changed dramatically. The trio of panelists discussed the latest production and technology trends, how they are embracing cloud-based and remote-production workflows, and the return of in-person, live events.

Highlight of the day proved to be the Riot Games’ Keynote Presentation on Project Stryker and its global remote-production efforts. For more than a decade, Riot Games Esports has helped blaze the trail when it comes to remote- and centralized-production workflows. Now Riot is taking it to the next level with Project Stryker.

After three years in development, Riot Games officially unveiled its first Stryker facility in Dublin over the summer: the first of three remote-broadcast centers (RBCs) strategically located around the world to create a “chase-the-sun” broadcast-operations model. At the Summit, Scott Adametz, director, infrastructure and broadcast engineering, and James Wyld, principal infrastructure engineer, explained how the Stryker facilities will receive live competition feeds to produce, broadcast, and translate content for millions of esports fans around the world.

Next up, the Esports Broadcast Technology panel addressed “Live-Production Tools for Today and Tomorrow” with speakers from disguise, NewTek, and Panasonic Connect. Even before the pandemic shutdown, no live-production sector pushed the boundaries of technology more than esports when it came to creating a unique fan experience. And this bleeding-edge mentality has only increased over the past 2½ years. With in-person events returning, these top broadcast-technology providers discussed the latest groundbreaking tools changing live esports production.

Adametz returned to the stage for a Sony Case Study on Riot’s Follow-the-Sun Production Model and how Nevion technologies and services are at the core of RiotDirect, orchestrating media flows between venues and production centers across Riot’s global media operations.

For the third consecutive year, SVG brought back the Observers Spotlight panel to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the in-game storytellers. No piece of the esports-production ecosystem is more integral to telling the story than the observer team. As virtual in-game camera operators, observers are responsible for constructing a coherent narrative out of the ballistic, expansive action taking place within the game. On this popular panel, some of the industry’s top observers discussed their production workflows, storytelling techniques, and how their tools continue to evolve.

The 2022 program closed with a exploration of what’s new in EMI, cloud, and distributed production models by speakers from Riot Games, Ross Video, Super League Gaming, and MTK Production. At the onset of the pandemic, the esports industry shifted quickly to online events and developed groundbreaking virtualized-production workflows and cloud-based technologies that revolutionized live esports broadcasts. With in-person LAN events back on the schedule, this session addressed the way esports-production teams are embracing hybrid models and how the lessons learned from the pandemic will be used for onsite productions in the future.

The 2022 SVG Esports Production Summit was made possible by Title Sponsor Ross Video; Diamond Sponsors Panasonic Connect and Vizrt Group; Gold Sponsors Canon, Evertz, Marshall, Riedel, RTS, The Studio – B&H; Case Study Sponsor Sony; and Event Sponsors Beck TV, G&D, and TAG Video Systems.