The technical requirements for the Queen's Jubilee weekend celebrations are huge and have resulted in the largest temporary outside broadcast and media facility ever constructed for a single event, writes Barbara Marshall
The technical requirements for the Queen's Jubilee weekend celebrations are huge and have resulted in the largest temporary outside broadcast and media facility ever constructed for a single event, writes Barbara Marshall.

According to events contractor Unusual Services, the event's facilities - which include around 300 cameras, 22 big screens and 10 miles of temporary mains cable - are bigger than anything ever required by either UK, European or US networks.

Unlike most events of this scale, there is no host broadcaster, so each broadcaster requires its own technical facilities. The exception is for coverage of the service at St Paul's on Tuesday (4 June) for which the BBC is the host broadcaster.

BBC Resources is providing broadcast facilities to the BBC but has had to subcontract CTV to supply the outside broadcast truck at St Paul's. According to BBC Resources senior engineering manager John Mason, every single BBC Resources truck - with the exception of one that is overseas - is being used on the event.

Of the 300 cameras covering the weekend's event in London, 150 are for the BBC alone, with Sky providing a further 80 and other broadcasters making up the balance. At Canada Gate, the site of the media centre, there will be 30 vehicles, excluding foreign broadcasters, plus a further 15 satellite vehicles. The BBC alone will use 30 vision circuits, 100 sound circuits, 70 VT machines and 500 radio circuits, simply to link all the London sites together.

BBC coverage includes two concerts from Buckingham Palace, the Queen's procession from the Palace to St Paul's Cathedral and on to the Guildhall on Tuesday (4 June), plus a procession of 20,000 performers up the Mall later the same day.

On Monday (3 June), the Queen will light the National Beacon, which will trigger the lighting of hundreds of fire beacons throughout Britain and the Commonwealth as part of a music, light and fireworks extravaganza that will be broadcast worldwide.

One of the most complex outside broadcasts of the weekend involves musical beacons, comprising 18 sites around the country linking up for a live rendition of All You Need is Love and later that evening, 12 sites - two live - will link for a specially composed piece of music called Jubilation.