Oktofest

In mid-2025, I was approached to work on the broadcast team of Oktofest, an up-and-coming Splatoon tournament hosted in Germany. I was tasked with building broadcast graphics for the event to fit the event branding created by BUGSLAP.

As I started working on pieces of the graphics, I don't think there was a single person between me and the organizing team leading the event that knew just how large this event was going to turn out. In the final weeks leading up to Oktofest, I ended up helping the organizing team make sense of the broadcast logistics as they were swamped with preparatory tasks.

We had to tackle lots of tasks largely unfamiliar to us. We gave advice on lighting design and audio mixing to technicians that had little knowledge of Splatoon, and organized a staggering 16-camera setup to be ready for us at the event. To set up the graphics, I learned the basics of vMix so its output could be keyed into the final broadcast. Our most complicated graphic, including facecams of all 8 players in the match, involved coordinating with the crew to set up a special source within the video mixer before the show. Usually all this is as easy as adding a couple more sources to the pile in OBS! I'm thankful for the perseverance of the main organizing team and the guidance of our broadcast team for making this work; it's a minor miracle the final product went together as smoothly as it did.

That short weekend taught me a lot about broadcasting, and I consider it one of my best event production experiences of 2025. I hope that crew will get the chance to come together for a show again in the future.

Oktofest's first and second day are available to watch on YouTube.