NIEUWPOORT, Belgium — On July 16, Nostalgie opened its Nostalgie Beach Radio studio, a temporary broadcast facility, serving the audience with seaside and sunshine radio. The seaside radio setup is the station’s first live outside broadcast since its last Nostalgie Beach Festival two years ago.
For three consecutive weeks, Nostalgie will be airing from a mobile studio in an event container unit, located on the sea front of Nieuwpoort. The studio is open to the audience, offering a “backstage” insight and the opportunity to meet Nostalgie’s on-air personalities.
“During the 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. live broadcast, we welcome our listeners in this beautiful Nostalgie Beach studio,” said Kevin De Geest, creative director of Nostalgie. “Our DJs provide the perfect summer soundtrack with the best classics and we have lots of goodies and prizes for the audience.”
As with the Beach Festival live broadcast, the sea front studio was developed by Luk De Groote, technical manager of Nostalgie Vlaanderen in close collaboration with Radiostudio.be, the station’s technical partner. “The basic set-up consists of a split Lawo Ruby AoIP mixing console, mixing the microphone sources, providing a full remote control for the Lawo Ruby structure in our main on-air studio in Antwerp,” De Groote said. “The beach studio’s Lawo Ruby console is the same as the studio’s in Antwerp, which our self-op presenters are acquainted with.”
Visual Radio
A big novelty is the implementation of visual radio in the pop-up studio. Tom Callebaut, manager of Radiostudio.be took the obligatory “corona-sabbatical” to develop automation software serving the three professional PTZ Optics PT30x-ndi-gy-c cameras.
“The corona-pause was time for research and development,” said Callebaut. “Contrary to the fixed installation in Nostalgie’s main on-air studio, this temporary set-up mainly offers overall studio shots. But when the presenters or guests take the microphone, the software triggers the camera and zooms in.” The video content is produced and encoded for internet in the Nieuwpoort studio and published on Nostalgie’s website.
A Telenet-connection with a 4G link as backup transmits the remote studio’s signal to the main studio. The remote control runs on the EmBER+ protocol, allowing fader-start and level-control of the Zenon-playout in Antwerp.
Two Telos AoIP Z/IP One codecs link the audio between the two studios. “During the corona-pause, we optimized the calibration of the codecs in terms of delay time and audio quality,” continued Callebaut. “I have been using the Z/IP codecs for many years and we know the strengths and weaknesses. Today, we have established a very stable, fast and high-quality signal.”
To enhance interaction with the public (still restricted due to COVID-measures), the presenter setup includes two Sennheiser Evolution E865 handheld microphones. Outside the beach studio, two Bose 802 speakers provide the on-air signal for the audience passing by.
Backup from Home Studio
With the musical content broadcasted directly from Nostalgie’s main studio on Antwerp’s left bank, and engineers in both studios, the remote setup is quite secure. A failure in the connection link can be restored during music playout time.
“In the worst case, we have Nostalgie presenter Domi Crommen on standby. He has been presenting his [Friday 19.00–22.00] show from his home studio during the pandemic. In case of emergency, he takes over the Nieuwpoort remote control using Lawo VisTool virtual radio studio on a touchscreen display,” explained De Groote.
Sunshine Walk and Taste
During the Aug. 7–8 weekend, Nostalgie will set up “Taste on Sunshine,” a culinary walk to discover the local gastronomic delicacies of the city of Nieuwpoort.
Two Nostalgie “Walk on Sunshine” routes offer participants a new impression of Nieuwpoort, with record cover stand-ups and song title road marks.
“For many years now, Nostalgie has a rendez-vous with the Belgian coastside, organizing the Nostalgie Beach Festival. A unique opportunity to reach out to our audience. Due to the exceptional health measures, we were forced to postpone the festival to 2022,” said Tom Klerkx, general manager of Nostalgie Vlaanderen. “With the “Walk on Sunshine,” we offer two unique Instagram and experience routes. The Nostalgie Beach studio takes this experience to a higher level.”