Dancing with the Stars Ireland – Season 8 & 9 (RTÉ / ShinAwiL, 2025 & 2026)
Role: Disguise Media Server Programmer
Produced by: High Res ShinAwiL x RTÉ One
Aired: Jan – Mar 2025 (S8) | Jan – Mar 2026 (S9)
After leaving my PA role at ShinAwiL in 2022, I returned to Dancing with the Stars Ireland as a Media Server Operator with High Res, who also deliver the lighting and LED screens for the show. In 2025, the production moved from Catalyst media servers operated via the Hog lighting desk to Disguise, which is very much my bread and butter software.
In pre-production, I built the project file with the Hog operator who does the show. They were moving to Disguise for the first time, and I had not programmed 42 layers of video to be operated from d3 in this way before. We ran into some issues getting the correct d3 sockpuppet versions talking with the desk, and the projector workflow in d3 threw some kinks at us. After calls with d3 support, we got much further along. The show was supported and overseen by the lead tech.
When the time came to go to site, my involvement that year grew quickly from a shadowing role into stepping in as the on-site d3 operator when the lead tech was unable to travel for setup. It was very much a baptism by fire and came with its own challenges, including a disrupted Christmas and being quite unwell during that period. The setup itself was tough, and as issues developed I became more deeply involved in troubleshooting and problem-solving. While intense, it gave me far more insight into the system and the wider production than I would have gained by simply observing. By the end of the process, the improvement in visual quality was undeniable. The new LED screens and Disguise workflow elevated the graphics and overall look of the show significantly.
For Season 9, we upped the ante again, with the Lighting Designer keen to run the entire system at 10-bit. I joined the project once the servers were already on site, rather than during prep, but the learnings from the previous year proved invaluable. This season brought its own challenges, and in working through them I also gained clarity on what had actually gone wrong the year before. More learning, more growth.
Although my role across these two seasons sat firmly on the technical side, the scale of effort across all departments is what really stands out. It takes a huge collective push to keep a show like this moving, and knowing that the final results on screens is a huge chunk of Sunday night’s TV ratings feels good to be a part of.