Working at the Australian Open tennis tournament

Live Events

29 March, 2022

In the end of 2021 Creative Technology Finland’s long-time technician Juuso Jaakkola was offered a possibility to work in the prestigious Australian Open tennis tournament. Jaakkola decided to accept the offer and travelled to Melbourne for a unique work experience. During Jaakkola’s almost 10 years career in the company, he has worked as a system operator, video operator and occasionally as a media server operator.

How did you end up travelling to Australia for work?

In November 2021, my supervisor called and asked if I wanted to work in the Australian Summer of Tennis. After one day of consideration, I decided to accept the offer. Rarely you get a chance to travel across the world for a work experience like this, and a 1,5 month trip to Australian summer in the middle of the cold Finnish winter didn’t sound bad at all.

What did your work include and in which events did you get to work at?

Most of the time I worked as a system technician. In other words, practically on-call with LED walls and repair if necessary.

Australian Open tennis tournament was where I worked most of my days. Before the Grand Slam, which kicked off in mid-January, the ATP tournament in Melbourne was played at the same venue. It is kind of like a training for the upcoming big event. The venue is pretty massive in size. There were approx. 3,000 m² of LEDs onsite and almost every day I met new people with a CT shirt on.

How was the technical equipment at the events?

The equipment used was top-notch. The media servers were the best you could get, the LED panels were new and the equipment used to process the signal were also on point. For example, transferring a 4k video signal over long distances to several different locations did not cause any problems.

The international tennis tournament has enabled large investments. In addition, CT Australia’s focus is solely on video productions, so all investments are in that one area.

What was the best thing about the work experience in Australia?

The best thing was the total change of scenery. After almost two years of doing various studio broadcasts and also leisure time being limited due to covid restrictions, I really enjoyed the possibility to work abroad with such a large-scale event. Secondly, colleagues in Australia are really relaxed and helpful.

How did you spend your time in Australia outside of work?

I spent my spare time mostly exploring the city. I worked mainly evening shifts, so my free time was spent in the afternoons. Of course, there was plenty to see in Melbourne. For example, I visited the zoo, went surfing a couple of times, and also got familiar with the Australian food and drink scene.

Creative Technology has been delivering technology solutions for Australian Open for 18 years in a row.