The Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) is the world’s largest military airshow, bringing together amazing aircraft from across the world and attracting 160,000 visitors.
The Mission
Our mission as the official photographer was to capture the spirit of the event and show the connection between the visitors on the ground and the dramatic action in the air and at numerous additional events happening across the 1200 acre active military airbase and a further 5 locations over 4 counties. The images were to be used to promote future ticket sales for RIAT 2023 and the hospitality spaces, to inspire the next generation of air and space pioneers and to secure the future of their mentoring, apprenticeships and sponsorship schemes.
The Challenges
Logistics
Disseminating 23 briefs from multiple stakeholders, for an event taking place over 5 days with 101 separate mini events. This required creating a comprehensive schedule to ensure 4 photographers could physically cover the ground and sites to capture these unrepeatable moments.
Staffing
At Twist our years of combined photography experience and an incredible network of suppliers enabled us to find the right photographers who could handle the scale of the job and who went above and beyond to capture the most breath-taking images. And supporting the photographers, making this possible, an ops team of 4 working behind the scenes.
At Twist we also believe in looking after our staff so that they can just turn up and do their jobs, because we know that this gets the best results. Accreditation was organised for the photographers and all members of the Twist team, as was accommodation, transport and all the logistics involved with a 5-day event in a heatwave.
Timings
We were able to provide top edits at the end of each day, and on demand where needed.
The Unforeseen
A surprise visit from Tom Cruise needing to be captured on top of all the other events taking place at the same time and, using our media connections, released to the press as quickly as possible to capitalise on the moment.
The Result
The whole team worked tirelessly with exceptional commitment to the job. Twist created a cloud-based digital catalogue of professional images for the RAFCTE immediately post event. Images were supplied complete with embedded keywords, to simplify image searches and offer logical navigation. Furthermore, the catalogue included many incredible images for the RAFCTE to use in inspiring the next generation of air and space pioneers.
