
events
Youre reading:
Solotech UK ramps up its Optocore inventory
Growing touring deployments of Festival Box, report dealers fac365
As Optocore dealers fac365 end the year, they can reflect with satisfaction at having further helped to establish the company's portfolio, notably Festival Box-not merely during the festival season-but for major international tours with bands like The Killers and Coldplay with four Festival Boxes making up Coldplay's control package and network infrastructure.
One major source for this success has been fast-expanding rental house, Solotech UK-which has a historic relationship with Optocore-supporting production with gear supplied from four warehouses spread across the UK.
We have sold a large number of items to Solotech over the past two years, confirm fac365 operations manager, Richard Newall, most recently an M8 [MADI] package for a touring playback rig and X6Rs for their Control/Drive racks.
In the north of England, prior to becoming part of the Solotech Group, Wigwam had become the first rental house adopter of Festival Box, while down south Optocore has long formed the backbone of the extensive delay network on the two-week BST Hyde Park event in London.
The device itself comes in two versions-the Grand (with 12 SFP ports) and Petite (with six SFPs)-Solotech now holding six Grandes and eight Petites across the group.
So what exactly is Festival Box and why has it proven so popular on tours ranging from Coldplay, to Billie Eilish and the Spice Girls? Essentially, it's a point-to-point converter, which enables all signals and protocols to tunnel over the same fiber-ideal for productions requiring a substantial number of connections between stage and FOH or where a succession of artist engineers are rocking up with different consoles, operating on a variety of protocols. Deployed as a data tunnel, comms, video, the support band console and remote aerials can all be put through it, thereby substantially reducing the number of cables at front of house. So the advantages are self-evident.
Robin Conway, Solotech UK's Senior Account Manager, is in no doubt why Optocore devices have played such a major role in the company's rental inventory. Optocore continues to form large parts of Solotech returns systems in the UK-generally when specified by the client-and we are more than happy to roll it out in these instances.
He reports that that the Petites have been used at festivals this summer to run various house desks (such as Avid S6L's) and communication networks. They have also been deployed with The Killers as the core connection between FOH and monitors-carrying MADI, SSL Blacklight and Network between each of these positions.
Solotech then hired an M8 MADI device from fac365 for use at this year's Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo to meet the audio design requirement.
A lot of the Optocore equipment is specified, although given the shortage of DD2/DD4 units, the M8/M12 is now the go-to solution when production needs to bring external MADI sources onto a DiGiCo/Optocore network, confirms Conway.
In summary, the Solotech man sees Optocore as a robust solution, providing a solid working platform for both audio and data. It is used and spec'd by many techs and PM's at Solotech in the UK, he concludes, and it will continue to be used when required and when specified for both loudspeaker returns systems and as a way of bringing additional I/O to DiGiCo networks.
We will continue to lean on fac365 for support when needed.
Previous post Next post
Optocore GmbH
Alte Allee 28
81245 M nchen
tel: +49 89 899 964 0
OPTOCORE is a German-based manufacturer of World's most popular, successful and ground-breaking Fibre Network Infrastructure and Point-to-Point systems for the install, broadcast and live industries.
QUICK LINKS:
Products
News
Downloads
Where to buy
Follow
Follow
Follow
ContacT us. We want to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don't hesitate to get in touch. You can reach us by phone, email or by filling out the contact form on our website. Our team is always here to help and we look forward to hearing from you!
Name
Email Address
What are you interested in? What are you interested in?InstallTouringBrodcastOther
Message
Submit
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
05/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
05/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
05/09/2026
InSync Technology, the leading provider of premium video conversion solutions, will showcase a new generation of products at IBC 2026, designed to help broadcas...
05/09/2026
GlobalM successfully supported quattro media GmbH and World Rowing, the world governing body of the Olympic sport of Rowing, with the international distribution...
05/09/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-In recognition of his exceptional work to understand the chemistry of carbohydrates and the role they play in health and disease, Scripps Family Ch...
04/09/2026
Media organisations interested in the Media Innovation Europe 3.0 Business Innovation Synergizer (BIS) can now consult a new FAQ document providing additional a...
04/09/2026
Eluvio will demonstrate updates to its Content Fabric platform at IBC2026 (Hall 8, Stand 8.MS5, and Future Tech Zone, Hall 14, Stand 14.A58, September 11-14). C...
04/09/2026
LiveU has joined the IBC Accelerator's Smart Stories consortium, a multi-vendor initiative developing an open standard for Story Context interoperability in...
04/09/2026
Telos Alliance will demonstrate new audio observability capabilities at IBC2026 (Stand 8.D37, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), covering monitoring of audio heal...
04/09/2026
World Team Tennis (WTT) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports, the sports division of Versant. USA Sports will air all six of WTT's live mat...
04/09/2026
Gravity Media has appointed Alex Pannell as Chief Business Officer. Pannell joins from Appear, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer. He will be based in ...
04/09/2026
Dalet has announced new agentic workflow capabilities for Dalia, its AI platform for media organizations, ahead of IBC2026. The updates extend Dalia from an AI ...
04/09/2026
L-Acoustics has achieved EN 54 certification across a portfolio of loudspeakers,...
04/09/2026
EVS and Matrox Video have announced a technology partnership integrating Matrox ...
04/09/2026
NEP Group will exhibit at IBC2026 (Hall 7, Stand 7.B55, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), demonstrating software-defined production capabilities across NEP Platf...
04/09/2026
The Television Academy has awarded an Engineering Emmy to Dr. Roman Foltyn, Chief Engineer of FoMaSystems, and Curt O. Schaller for the development of the ARRI ...
04/09/2026
InSync Technology will exhibit at IBC2026 (Stand 1.A55, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), demonstrating its FrameFormer and NOVA conversion platforms for frame r...
04/09/2026
The Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) has signed a multi-year agreemen...
04/09/2026
Accedo and MediaKind have announced a white-label, end-to-end streaming solution for operators, combining Accedo's native application framework and cloud-ba...
04/09/2026
TAG Video Systems has announced TAG Blue, a cloud platform for shared monitoring visibility across video delivery chains, with AI-powered root-cause analysis. T...
04/09/2026
TwelveLabs has launched a video compliance platform for media organizations, inc...
04/09/2026
The Television Academy and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences ha...
04/09/2026
Powerful new soft synth announced
Traveler is the first software instrument to be released by KeySolutions Sounds, and it's an ambitious one! Said to co...
04/09/2026
Free virtual instrument range expanded
The latest expansion of e-instruments' free Fragments series introduces a packed-down version of the company'...
04/09/2026
Company recognised for second time
Two years after winning an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award for dxRevive Pro, Accentize have been recognised ...
04/09/2026
Bilbao - 3rd September 2026 -AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV and vi...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
ACEMAGIC First to Introduce Ryzen AI Max PRO 495 AI Mini Workstation at IFA 202...
04/09/2026
Krotos Brings Video to Sound Footsteps Directly into Premiere Pro and DaVinci Re...
04/09/2026
RED DIGITAL CINEMA Comes Out Swinging at IBC 2026 with Next-Generation Live Broa...
04/09/2026
Orty v2.0-web - the cold-outreach assistant moves to the web
Brie Clayton September 4, 2026
0 Comments
Orty today announced v2.0-web of its AI cold-ou...
04/09/2026
Lightware is expanding its LARA (Lightware Advanced Room Automation) platform with the GUDE Power Distribution Units (PDU) driver module. GUDE devices can now b...
04/09/2026
Lightware shares the second release in its ESG communications series. Following the first piece, which focused on the companys environmental performance, this r...
04/09/2026
Big Blue Marble supported a leading European public service broadcaster in delivering the Soccer World Cup 2026 streams, supplying more than 10 Tbps of bandwidt...
04/09/2026
Outstanding achievement in engineering, science and technology
Hitomi Broadcast has been recognised with an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy from the Ac...
04/09/2026
California, Hollywood at a Crossroads
Andy Marken September 3, 2026
0 Comments
I'm doing everything alone. Crossing roads alone. Seeing the Eiffe...
04/09/2026
Berklee Announces Winners of 2026 SongwritersdB Songwriting Contest Students Luca Alexandru, Annika Wild, and Johanna James received the top prizes for origin...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
RT ANNOUNCE NEW DRAMA THE MURDER OF MR. MOONLIGHT
BASED ON THE DISAPPEARANCE...
03/09/2026
Yospace will be at IBC from 11th - 14th September (booth 5.C78). For more inform...
03/09/2026
NEP Group has announced leadership changes at Creative Technology Group. Founder and CEO Graham Andrews will step away from day-to-day leadership at the end of ...
03/09/2026
The NFL and TikTok have announced a multi-year partnership renewal expanding the league's presence on the platform. NFL posts on TikTok increased more than ...
03/09/2026
Grass Valley has appointed Ronny Van Geel as Vice President, Cameras. Van Geel began his career in 1999 at Philips DVS and moved into product management in 2005...
03/09/2026
Telestream has announced Vantage Super Resolution, an AI-powered upscaling capability for the Vantage media workflow platform, developed in collaboration with N...