The Wait is over. The MEDIAPRO Group has put tickets on sale for Ubeat Live, held between July 1 - 3 at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue and featuring the very best eSports content, events featuring content creators, freestyle, music, urban art and a multitude of other activities. Tickets are available on the Festivals website and via Fever.

UBEAT Live was born in response to the demand from new generations of consumers (Gen Z’s, but open to all audiences), who up to now have not had a major regular physical event to bring together the best official and professional competitions and top content the demographic are interested in. With one single ticket, and depending on the day’s billing, visitors can enjoy a host of events including the best professional video game tournaments in Spain -eSports- (final of the VALORANT Regional League Spain: Rising MediaMarkt Intel and a day’s competition of  League of Legends Superliga); two USN World Summer Cup freestyle events; the Spanish qualifier of the Balloon World Cup (the Balloon World Cup organized by Ibai Llanos and Gerard Piqué), the very best urban art featuring artists like Ricardo Cavolo, Spanish HADO Championship, meetings and activities with creators of Internet’s most popular content, concerts, DJ's and many other activities soon to be announced

Tickets for UBEAT Live are now available to buy on the Festival website with several options available (1-day or 3-day tickets; as well as premium experience passes ) at a special promotional launch price starting at €35.

UBEAT Live is supported by Barcelona City Council and Fira de Barcelona and the Festival is making a firm commitment to community action - with specific initiatives being organized throughout the event - and sustainability, with the focus firmly on reducing waste generation and prioritizing the use of recyclable materials.

MEDIAPRO is enjoying a high-profile presence over the week at the Integrated Systems Europe event (ISE). A variety of different companies and areas of the Group, including Unitecnic, El Terrat, Mediapro Events Events and VISYON, as well as representatives from the Innovation area, are taking part in round-table debates devoted to a wide range of different topics which cover audiovisual engineering, new content for digital platforms and hybrid events, among other themes. The event is, in addition, a meeting point for the companies with their suppliers and clients over the course of the world’s leading audiovisual sector congress which will be taking place from May 10th to the 13th in the Barcelona Exhibition Center.

Edgar Angulo, representing Unitecnic, took part in a round-table debate devoted to education on Wednesday: “Audiovisual techniques for the education of today and tomorrow”, as part of the AV Experience Zone sessions organised by AVIXA. Edgar Angulo talked about the solutions provided by the audiovisual sector for the vocational education sector as well as for the professional educational sector.

Wednesday also saw El Terrat (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO) take part in the “The voice of the new digital platforms. Present and future” round table. Agustí Esteve, the executive director of El Terrat, talked together with other sector professionals about topics such as the entertainment consumption trends, the decrease in traditional TV viewership, the future of the platforms.

Mariano Rodríguez, the head of Mediapro Events, was one of the speakers in “The future of events to adapt to the new times” on Thursday May 12th, also part of the AV Experience Zone section. Drawing on Mediapro Events’ experience , Mariano Rodríguez outlined how the different sectors have adapted and integrated digital formats and hybrid solutions into live events such as conferences, conventions, galas and awards ceremonies etc..And how technology solutions have to work alongside creative proposals to bring value to the events in the new audiovisual panorama.

In addition, Raül Cruz, the head of operations at VISYON, took part in the “Metaverse: the new virtual economy” round-table where the opportunities generated in this new tech’ trend were debated.

The MEDIAPRO Group is taking part in the ISE via ACCIÓ - the Agency for Business Competiviness, which has its own stand for Catalan companies specializing in the development of hardware, software and audiovisual sector services as well as organizing networking events via the Open Innovation Challenge. This part of the Congress saw staff from the Innovation Area in the Group take part, as well as making contributions to conferences such as “The transformation of the sports industry thanks to new audiovisual technologies”.

TelevisaUnivision and THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO announced a strategic agreement to produce and develop exclusive content for ViX+, the premium subscription streaming service (SVOD) scheduled to launch in the second half of this year. The first projects fruit of this agreement are scripted drama series “Las pelotaris” and the sports docuseries “La sangre y la gloria”.

“Las pelotaris” is an exciting drama set in the 1920s, which tells the story of three pioneering women who broke barriers to succeed. Created by Marc Cistaré (“Locked Up”, “The Boat”, “Victim number 8”), the series will be shot on location in Spain and Mexico under the direction of Jesús Rodrigo (“Locked Up”, “The Boarding School”, “I’m Alive”, “Un paso adelante”) with a screenplay by Adriana Rivas (“Locked Up”, “I’m Alive”, “Red Eagle”), Javier Naya (“The Boat”, “Rabia”) and Mexico’s Anaí López (“XY”, “Bienvenida realidad”, “Infames”).

Docuseries "La sangre y la gloria" investigates well-known Mexican sports figures and their relationship with the world of crime, either as victims or as protagonists. Created by Juan Villoro, author of “El testigo” (XXII Herralde Novela Prize), “Dios es redondo”, “Balón dividido” and winner of the Manuel Vázquez Montalbán International Prize for Sports Journalism awarded by FC Barcelona. In the director’s chair is award-winning director Everardo González whose work has featured at many prestigious Festivals including Berlin, IDFA, Toulouse, Locarno, Montreal, BAFICI, Sarajevo, Guadalajara, Valladolid and Morelia. His features include “Devil’s Freedom” (Amnesty International Award at the Berlinale), “A 3 Minute Hug” and “Children from the Narcozone” (nominated for the News and Doc Emmy Award).

As part of the recently launched ViX, the largest streaming service in Spanish, in the first year alone, the platform will offer a premium subscription level (SVOD) ViX+ with more than 10,000 hours of content including over 50 original series and movies.

The Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) League of Legends, the first big competition of the year which brings together the regional champions kicked off this Tuesday in South Korea.

The MSI 2022 sees 11 teams taking part with GS Esports, the European representative, after winning the LEC tournament and with the only Spanish player taking part in the competition, Víctor “Flakked” Lirola in their ranks. The Catalan player, winner of this year’s LEC, is looking to become the first ever Spanish winner of the MSI, something which not even legendary Spanish League of Legends players such as Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño and Alfonso “Mithy” Aguirre were able to achieve.

The competition is divided into three phases: Stage 1 (from May 10th to the 15th) which features a group stage with the 11 teams divided into three different groups with each team playing each other team twice. Only six teams, the top two teams in each group will go through to Stage 2 (from May 20th to 24th), where the six qualifiers will compete in another mini-league with each team again playing each other team twice. Finally the top four teams will go through to the play-off phase, Stage 3 (from May 27th to 29th, over the best of five maps).

The competition which kicks off every day from 8 to 10 in the morning CET time, sees the usual commentating team for the Superliga on board with Víctor “Wolk” Fernández, Sergio “Teshrak” Cerdán, David “Skain” Carbó, Ainhoa “Noa” Campos, David “Champi” Pérez and Jaime Mellado, alongside Fernando Cardenete, Javier “Toad” Cepero and Carlos “BebeCaster” Sánchez, the usual faces for the Superliga Segunda El Corte Inglés.

The entire tournament can be followed from May 10th to the 29th May exclusively in Spanish via the LVP Twitch channel.

Royal Never Give Up will be back to defend their crown

The 2021 edition, which took place in Reykjavík, in Iceland, the Chinese team Royal Never Give Up (RNG), beat the Korean team DWG KIA 3-2 in the grand final. The Chinese team will be back in Korea to defend their title but this time around, their Korean counterparts didn’t make it through the qualifiers and for the 2022 edition T1 will be the Korean representative in the tournament with their international star League of Legends player, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok.  

In addition to the European champions, Korea and China the 2022 MSI also sees Evil Geniuses (North America), PSG Talon (Pacific), Saigon Buffalo (Vietnam), Istanbul Wildcats (Turkey), Team Aze (Latin America), RED Canids (Brazil), DetonatioN FM (Japan) and ORDER (Oceania) all taking part.

Unitecnic, the MEDIAPRO Group specialising in audiovisual engineering,has recently carried out two new projects in the healthcare sector. Its two latest audiovisual solutions implemented in the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona and the University Hospital in Bellvitge have met the medical specialists needs to communicate with other areas of the hospital as well as providing remote access to carry out presentations, conferences and live training.

In the two centers, the signals from the operating theatres have been integrated into an IP platform. Via a touch screen, it is possible to select the desired content and even record without sophisticated technical knowledge.

Hospital Clínic Barcelona

For the Hospital Clínic project, the solution designed by Unitecnic was implemented in the Cardiovascular Institute (ICCV). The MEDIAPRO Group company was responsible for the audiovisual integration of two new cardiovascular operating theatres, with each other having its own control room, as well as a hybrid room with a new ground-breaking radiology system in Europe for complex procedures as well as a meeting and training room connected to the three operating theatres and the control room.

Unitecnic equipped each of the three operating theatres with two PTZ video, microphone, loudspeaker systems as well as multi-vision screens for signal visualisation and multi-connection types. The control rooms are equipped with touch screens for audiovisual control, video-conferencing systems, two-way audio systems for use in the operating theatres. The area set aside for meetings and training, in addition to being connected to the other areas has also been provided with a 4K 75-inch interactive screen.

The user interface developed by Unitecnic controls the different elements of the installation and allows users without technical knowledge to be able to use it via a touch screen. In addition, the new audiovisual system is capable of receiving and sending signals in events such as congresses. The audiovisual integration project carried out by Unitecnic in the Cardiology Unit at the Hospital Clínic has improved patient care, as well as on-the-job training and affords participation in large medical congresses.

Bellvitge University Hospital

Unitecnic was also chosen to carry out the audiovisual integration in the two operating theatres at the Ofthalmology Unit at the Bellvitge University Hospital, including a VICTUS laser unit as well as a meeting and training room. The two operating theatres have been equipped with PTZ remote cameras, wireless microphones, a loudspeaker system, multi-vision screens and live broadcast capabilities. The meeting and training room has seen the installation of a 3D projection system to send and see the 3D images from the operating theatres as well as being able to bring up images from the other three installations and enjoy two-way communication for each separate site. The audio and video signal quality is guaranteed via the use of IP video broadcast systems and professional audio processing services.

The user interface developed by Unitecnic allows the management of the entire system from a user-friendly screen. The hospital now has a communications room which connects the operating theatres to other areas of the hospital. The operating area is also connected to this area in order to be able to receive and send signals to other parts of the hospital.

Unitecnic, part of the MEDIAPRO Group, brings all its experience and know-how to the broadcast environment to this type of audiovisual projects in the medical field.

Tragedy turns into comedy as time passes, or at least that’s what happens on “Zasback”, a new comedy show in which stand-up comedy goes one step beyond. The new comedy show sees stand-up comedy go behind the stage with the Movistar Plus+ original program featuring Hugo Silva, Anna Castillo, Pablo Chiapella, María León and Andreu Buenafuente recreating real-life events hitherto untold.

In each episode of “Zasback”, each one of them will take a look-back at forgettable moments from their lives, those "I wish I wasn’t there moments" which they would prefer to delete forever. An accusation of being caught with drugs abroad, being kidnapped by a fan, assaulting a Barça player, or lying at the local hospital are just some of the embarrassing real-life moments in “Zasback”.

The up-shot will be five fun 25-minute trips which will include stand-up routines by the featured comic in a venue full-to-the-brim, fiction, recreating the incredible moment by themselves and with famous cameo appearances in a “zasback” by Hugo Silva, Anna Castillo, Pablo Chiapella, María León and Andreu Buenafuente.

In this new adventure, the five stand-ups will draw on help from friends, family members and colleagues. In addition, each episode will be directed by a famous producer.

With the premiere of “Zasback”, Movistar Plus+ is taking another step in its strategy of investing in talent and best entertainment content upgrading stand-up comedy as we know it.

Premiere May 24th at 22.30 on Movistar Plus+ (dial 7). All the programs will be available on demand on Movistar Plus+.

“Zasback” is a Movistar Plus+ original production in collaboration with El Terrat and La Caña Brothers.