Bridge Technologies December Blog Post

Our 2022 Christmas Party 

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you might be forgiven for thinking that all we do is organise spectacular events and find ways to celebrate and enjoy ourselves. And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong – as we love a good spectacle and we do truly believe in the importance of happiness and indulgence. But behind the scenes, we’re actually incredibly hard workers; productive, efficient, driven and devoted to what we’re trying to achieve in the world of IP. The cliché ‘work hard, play hard’ is overused (and often misused, to actually cover-up a chaotic and toxic work environment), but we like to think we achieve it in a genuinely wholesome sense. Our celebrations are exactly that; celebrations of our team, their achievements, their commitment and their value. It’s also celebration of the idea that business is only one part of the wider puzzle – a puzzle that should also include good food, good friends and novel experiences which form the core of future memories. 

And so then, to one of the crowning jewels in our event calendar: the Christmas Party. There was a funny dimension to this year’s party; it felt entirely natural to be in each other’s company, but every so often it would occur to us that we hadn’t actually enjoyed a proper Christmas party since 2020. And since we’ve expanded our team quite significantly since then, for many it was a first! Of course, we’ve been seeing each other much more in the offices these days, and in a way that was something we needed to address with our Christmas party: we’ve made the office such a haven of comfort – especially with Deniz’s incredible group lunches and the addition of the engineering third floor and its infamous hidden fridge – that we needed to break free and do something truly unusual. 

How to begin? Well, with the cabaret of course! We went to the Chat Noir to see Silya Nymoen perform. And what a spectacular performance it was – an incredible musical talent complimented by a charismatic and frequently cheeky sense of humour. Silya is a famous face for those of us who tune in to Norwegian TV on a regular basis – she participated in the Melodi Gran Prix and in Stjernekamp – our equivalent of X Factor or Pop Idol. 

A little bit of champagne (of course) greased the social wheels, before a bus took us off to the Rainbow recording studios. Again, if you’ve followed our blogs for any time at all, you’ll know how important these studios are to us. They’re our literal neighbours on-site near the Akerselva river and through this connection, Rainbow’s audio engineer Martin has become a good friend to Bridge, and his expertise has been a key proving ground for the VB440’s audio tools. 

Rainbow’s large hall was decked out in its Christmas finest, and we were all greeted by Santa Claus, who had kindly taken time out of his busy winter schedule to come and listen to our Christmas wishes and deliver some early gifts. This time he even joined us for dinner, though with his big boots and even bigger belly it was quite the challenge to squeeze him a place at the table. 

With drinks flowing we feasted festively, accompanied by beautiful piano music, before decamping to the offices for further refreshment and dancing. We were so pleased to be joined by Bridge’s greatest friend Axel, who was there in capacity as honoured guest rather than entertainment (though with it being Axel, he was as much one as the other). 

As always, the whole evening was filled with spectacle – music and expression were key elements throughout. There’s a strange trend towards calling parties ‘functions’, but for us, they should be anything but ‘functional’; they should be expressions of creativity, aesthetic beauty and the potential for serendipity and the unexpected. They are really a mirror to what we’re trying to do on a technological level; providing a framework that facilitates human creativity. Broadcast isn’t binary (even if it is digital…), because ultimately, the final product isn’t about rules but expression and connection. That’s what our products are about, and that’s what our parties are about too! Each stage of the party paralleled something we do in our daily business; when we saw the show we related because we too know the pressures of production, when we visited the studio we felt at home because this is the environment we’re seeking to cater for. Each location of the party allowed us to engage with it ‘from the other side’ for a night. 

And of course it was also time for reflection. 2022 has been quite a different year to 2021, in the sense that whilst we have moved forward just as much in previous years, it has been through smaller, incremental steps (we did take one particularly giant leap – the length of a whole football pitch you might say – but we’ll talk about that more next year). Yes, whether it was our 6.1 release, the integration of signal generation and SR Live metadata, the addition of SCTE 104/35 monitoring or improved ASI Monitoring in the VB246, our engineers can be rightly proud of the forward movements they’ve made. And as a team, we can all celebrate a Best-Of-Show award at NAB, an award-winning IBC (Best Stand Design, dontcha know?) and a range of business deals that have secured our position as an integral part of some of the world’s biggest broadcasting networks.

So all that’s left to do is to thank our team again, and expand that thanks to our business partners, industry peers, good friends and family. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!