Festival dello Sport 2026: live transcription on the audience's phones

Il Festival dello Sport, in its 9th edition, took place in Trento from 1 to 4 October 2026. Converso® provided live transcription in Italian at Palazzo della Regione — 13 talks over four days, from 11:00 to 21:30 — and distributed the simultaneous interpretation in three other festival venues. The audience opened the Converso® WebApp from a QR code in the room, on their own smartphone, tablet or PC, with no app to download. A technician and a linguist worked from the RSI Hub in Milan, with no Converso® equipment in the room. The festival described the service on a dedicated page (in Italian).

The Challenge

For four days, the Festival dello Sport brings champions, coaches, referees and journalists to Trento, with talks open to the public in venues across the city. Since 2024 Converso® has distributed the festival's simultaneous interpretation: the audience listens to the interpreters on their own phones, with a QR code and no receivers.

For the 2026 edition, the organisers asked for one more step: make the talks at Palazzo della Regione accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, with live transcription of every speaker.

There were three conditions:

• no screens or equipment to add in an institutional venue already set up by the festival's audio provider
• no new tool for the audience to learn: people who already used the WebApp for interpretation had to find the transcription in the same place
• a short lead time: the service was confirmed two weeks before the opening

The Solution

One entry point for everyone. The festival QR code opens a landing page with the list of venues. Selecting "Palazzo della Regione" opens the live transcription page; a dedicated accessibility icon makes it easy to spot. Interpretation and transcription live in the same WebApp, branded with the graphics of the edition.

The floor from the room's audio desk. The venue's audio provider sends the floor to Converso® through a web link, with no extra cables or computers. The AI engine transcribes in Italian, and the WebApp delivers the text to everyone who has opened the page, with the same technology as our AI live subtitling.

An engine prepared on the programme. Before each day, the engine was prepared with Context Training on the content of the talks: names of athletes, teams, competitions and sports. At a sports festival, proper names make the difference between a text people can read and one they have to decode.

Human oversight from the RSI Hub. Throughout the festival, a linguist followed the transcription live from Milan, with the technician on duty at the RSI Hub ready to act on the audio feed.

Telling the audience. Converso® gave the organisers the copy for the infographic at the entrance of the Palazzo and the wording for the printed programme, where transcribed talks were marked as "talk with live transcription, available in the room on your own phone".

The Results

• 13 talks transcribed over four days, from Paralympic sport to cycling, from tennis to refereeing
• No app, no equipment in the room, no change to the Palazzo's audio setup
• One QR code for both interpretation and transcription, across the four venues served by Converso®
• The festival published a dedicated information page about the service on its website

The same approach works for cultural and sports festivals, multi-venue programmes, institutional conferences, public programmes of museums and theatres, events that want to make even a single room accessible without changing its setup.