Kiwi firm loses cash after 3D deal fails

Ronel Shodt. File photo / Kenny Rodger

A 3D film company that could not get enough advance sales for its live coverage of the Rugby World Cup is the tournament's first high-profile business failure.

3D Live owners Ronel and Karl Shodt have had to put the family home on the market after agreeing with the International Rugby Board last month to pull the plug on a 3D rights deal.

The firm had to sell tickets in advance for live broadcasts into venues such as Vector Arena and 50 cinemas in New Zealand and Australia to pay the cost of filming the big games.

The IRB would have reaped the rewards from selling rights for 3D coverage elsewhere.

But ticket sales were too slow and 3D Live could not get RWC approval for sponsorship that clashed with its own sponsors, Ronel Shodt said.

The company got caught with costs, such as deposits on the venues.

"It's not good. We can go into liquidation with the Rugby World Cup company 3D Live, which is no longer active, but we can carry on with our other company providing 3D programming and holograms," she said. "So far [creditors] have been very understanding.

"We knew there was always a risk ... we've lost a lot of money. We were looking for 75 per cent [advance] ticket sales," she said. "It's a very different culture here. New Zealanders would wait to see if the All Blacks were in the final before buying the ticket and leave it until the last day - we could not operate like that."

The couple were "seriously" out of pocket, she said.

"We should never have gotten into it without sponsorship. Decisions on contracts had come through very late ... and there were a lot of rules and it became really, really hard getting sponsors.

"We put a couple of sponsorship deals on the table which were not acceptable to the Rugby World Cup company.

"Rugby World Cup rejected them, not wanting it to conflict with their own sponsorship deals."

Overseas 3D coverage of last year's soccer World Cup was built around sponsorship by electronics company Sony and was designed to hurry the uptake of 3D TVs.

"That is what should have been negotiated [when] they started making deals. When people started signing up deals with Rugby World Cup, 3D was not an issue," Ronel Shodt said.

RWC 2011 general manager Ross Young said there were challenges getting the Shodts' "self-funding" plan to work.

Sky TV chief John Fellet said that with the end of the deal, there were no plans for 3D TV coverage for about 7000 sets capable of receiving a 3D picture in New Zealand.

He predicted 3D coverage or "super high definition" - offering pictures four times as sharp as standard HD - would become more common.