I just want to thank you for your hard work and excellence which helped make our conference such a success. The feedback we have received post event is more positive and sizeable than we dared hope for. The great thing is that the feedback, whether it’s an e-mail internally or a tweet, picks out the production team, the impact the stage had, the quality of the videos and the professionalism of the whole event.Head of Group Operations
Usually a small scale event for 250 delegates, the company which has 47 dealerships and represents a diverse range of brands from Vauxhall to Maserati and Aston Martin, invited 1000 staff to attend a company extravaganza at the First Direct Arena in Leeds.
Upon arrival at the Arena, visitors knew they were in for something special as they were greeted by a parade of 12 vehicles all lit in the corporate colours. Once inside the venue, the show opened with an inspirational video detailing the company’s’ award for ‘The Best Place to Work” and then it was on with the show as a Gun’s & Roses style intro sting with synchronised light show welcomed an “air guitar” wielding Chief Executive onto the stage!
Top Gear
Dramatic lighting was the order of the day provided by over 90 high end LED fixtures including Robe Pointes and DLX spots. These were highlighted by a Unique2 haze machine, creating a dynamic vista of coloured lighting beams.
A highlight to the stage set was a prestige row of top car models in front of the stage. These were flanked by a Ferrari California and a VW XL1 mounted on our new car turntables. Unlike many other turntable solutions, these excellent low profile units fit under the vehicle completely out of sight. The Ferrari caused a few scratched heads with a ground clearance of only 2cm but all was well and the two cars slowly revolved throughout the whole show creating a stunning magical effect. The giant flown 9M x 5M centre screen was underpinned by 120 panels of our LED PixelMesh, onto which we mapped various animated automotive looks including a motorway time-lapse of fast moving traffic and rotating wheels.
Each speaker had different coloured slides for each section of the conference, so the backdrops matched the main slideshow keeping the theme moving throughout the show. The mesh also displayed moving graphics and logo’s for guest speaker Gary Verity from Welcome to Yorkshire.
Lights, Cars, Action!
Live camera relay from four camera’s was mixed to screen along with VT and presentation slides using a Roland V800 HD mixer. Capturing this notable event for posterity was taken care of with a 6 camera shoot recorded in HD using DSLR camera’s mounted on steadycams and a camera jib. Our Leeds editing suite made a quick turn around of all the footage to produce a 2-minute cascade video for the following day that was sent to all those who could not attend in person.
Fine-tuning
To complete the arena experience we also provided a 12 cell d&b Q series line array with Q7 in-fills and extra subs to really ramp up the volume! Presenters using Sennheiser headset mics were provided with their own on-stage monitor mix using d&b E12’s.
