It is the second year that DesignScene has produced the event for the Anderson Foundation. The project was managed for them by Ben Turner, and designed by DesignScene's creative director, Attila Keskin. Turner comments, "It was very exciting to be working in London's newest high profile hotel. As nothing this large had been done before we had a real chance to set a standards."
The high profile Anderson Foundation event for about 250 people was staged in the hotel's main space off the main reception areas. DesignScene's brief included the specification and supply of lighting, sound and AV equipment plus all other technical infrastructure requirements and the challenges included limited power availability and no flying facilities, so all technical elements had to be ground supported.
A basic Steeldeck stage was installed and finished with a pale grey carpet and mirror edging, and a perspex lectern supplied for speeches. The evening's live music entertainment was provided by top session band, the All Stars, with whom DS works on many events. At the back of the stage DS erected three off 20ft high by 10ft wide graphics, featuring the event logo and the National Autistic Society logos prominently displayed, which was ground supported by tanks traps and scaffolding.
Twenty battery powered Wireless LED uplighters were used to illuminate the room's architecture. Keskin's lighting design was optimised and specific to all the lightsources being floor based. Eight striking 2m high mirror-clad plinths were placed around the room, with Vari*Lite 2500 moving lights on top, used to create atmospheric environmental lighting.
Onstage were eight Martin Professional MAC 250 moving lights, six LED battens and six Source Four profiles on stands which dealt with the band and various speakers.
All lighting was controlled using an Avolites Pearl console. It made the room appear larger than its real size and, a design centred around quality lightsources placed in strategic locations, facilitated great creativity with a small amount of fixtures!
The sound brief called for a high quality system that was good for live music and the spoken word, so a d&b was chosen. Six d&b T10 speakers were arranged in ground stacked clusters for the main stage left and right arrays, with T10 out-fills and d&b Q-SUBS, all powered by d&b's proprietary D12 amplifiers. For monitors four d&b M4 wedges were supplied.
The FOH sound desk was a Yamaha M7 digital and the sound spec also included eight channels of Shure in-ear monitors and Shure Beta 87A wireless mics.
The video and screen design was deliberately neat and compact, with 2 x 50 inch plasma screens flanking the stage and another 6 - all on stands - spread around the room to ensure that all guests enjoyed a clear view of the stage action from wherever they were seated. Two Sony DSR450 cameras (running on wireless RF data transmission) were used to provide IMAG feeds back to a Diventex 2 HD switcher.
(Jim Evans)
