'Kölle Alaaf'! Today marks the start of the street carnivals in the city of Cologne – where the head office of G&L is based. Due to a project our event team was involved in, even those who could not physically be there to celebrate were able to attend. We supported our colleagues from CNC Cologne News on Valentine's Day in live broadcasting a great charity costume party to the two Cologne hospitals Merheim and Holweide. Via a point-to-point connection using our Haivision Makito Encoder & Decoder, the livestream was fed directly into the TV network of the hospitals via SRT. In this way, the 'Kölner Dreigestirn', and the bands Bläck Fööss and Cat Ballou were available to the patients simply by pressing a button on the remote control. Such projects are something we are very happy to support!
A little local history
This brings us full circle to this year's motto '200 years of Cologne Carnival: Ov krüzz oder quer' with historical reference. Emil Jülich's 1905 song says: "Ov krüzz oder quer, ov Knäch oder Hähr - mer looße nit un looße nit vum Fasteleer!". This means: no matter how things turn out, the people of Cologne never let their Carnival be taken away. Even in hard times, carnival helps you take time-out from the problems of everyday life.