Farnborough International Airshow
Live airshow coverage that holds up on every screen, every show since 2014
Farnborough International Airshow needs its afternoon air display on every screen across the airfield and in the hands of the global news outlets taking the feed. We have delivered that broadcast, live, at every show since 2014.
Snapshot
Client: Farnborough International Airshow (FIA)
Sector: International live event and trade show
Delivered: Live broadcast coverage of the daily air display, to on-site screens and the global news feed
Track record: Seven shows since 2014
The display has to look right on every screen at once
Farnborough is one of the aviation industry's biggest dates, and the afternoon air display is its centrepiece. Aircraft of every kind cross the sky, some moving at over 100mph, with helicopters and parachute teams between them. That display has to reach two audiences in the same moment. It plays live on the screens throughout the airfield and its chalets, and it feeds the on-site media hub, who cut the pictures and send them straight to news outlets around the world. If the coverage looks anything less than broadcast standard, that shows on every screen on the site and in every clip that leaves it.
Results: What the client gets, and why they keep coming back
The broadcast-quality images reach every screen across the airfield and its chalets, and they feed the media hub sending pictures to news outlets worldwide. The day-one YouTube stream drew 42,000 views, from an online audience of aviation enthusiasts who notice a soft frame or a missed pass and say so. After the show, the client keeps the footage to archive and reuse for its own marketing. In 2026 the event's commentator, working with one of our broadcasts for the first time and coming from outside television, remarked on how good the pictures looked on the screens. At the end of it, the same thing happens that has happened since 2014: the client asks us back for the next one.
When the media hub's cable failed mid-display
At the 2026 show, the media hub's own ingest cable failed in the middle of a display. They turned to us. We record locally as standard on every job, the kind of redundancy nobody asks for until the moment it is needed, and that local recording kept their edit going while the cable was sorted. The client has booked that reliability every two years since 2014. Farnborough runs biennially, and we have covered all seven shows across those twelve years.
Holding a broadcast frame on an aircraft thousands of feet up
The air display puts fast, distant subjects against open sky. We cover it with box-lens cameras that pull tight on aircraft thousands of feet up and travelling at speed, operated by specialists who track them cleanly enough to hold a broadcast frame. From years of covering this display, we know where the camera towers have to stand to catch the passes, which is why most of the preparation happens before a single aircraft flies.
The unglamorous logistics that decide whether any of it happens
Most of what makes the coverage work never shows in the pictures. Scaffold towers have to go up in the exact positions the shots need. Parking passes, accreditation, air-conditioning to keep the kit from overheating, water and food for the crew: none of it is glamorous, and the broadcast falls apart without it. As a third-party supplier inside a very large event, we plan for those requests to slip down someone else's priority list, and we chase every one until it is confirmed. The chasing carries on once we are on site. At the 2026 show, two scaffold poles would have sat in shot, so the director tracked down a builder with an angle grinder and had the tops cut off before the display started.
One supplier handles the whole broadcast
Farnborough deals with one supplier. We bring in the broadcast experts and the proper kit behind that single point of contact, so the client carries none of the coordination, and we know exactly who is turning up and to what standard. Because the show runs only every two years, a fair amount is forgotten in the gap, so part of the early job is reminding the client what the broadcast needs and why, well before planning proper begins.
If your live event has to look broadcast-standard on the screens
If you run a live event where the screens and the outgoing feed have to look broadcast-standard from the first minute, and you would rather one team handled the cameras, the sound, the live direction and the distribution than line up several suppliers yourself, send us the brief. We will come back within two working days with how we would cover it.
