British involvement in the Expo was led by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) with support from seven HM Government departments. The UK Pavilion was designed by award-winning British artist Wolfgang Buttress to reflect the theme 'Grown in Britain & Northern Ireland', and incorporated visual technology, interactive lighting and sound design, a 360-degree immersive speaker array and musical elements to evoke the journey of a honey bee through a series of landscapes as visitors passed through the pavilion. Inside, the pavilion featured a 56-seat conference suite, 18-seat board room and dining facilities for 24 people.
The Shure Microflex Wireless system was used for sound reinforcement during presentations in the executive conference centre. According to Mike Bedford, Principal at Hoare Lea Intelligent Buildings, four mic transmitters were used: an MXW1 bodypack, an MXW2/VP68 handheld, an MXW8 gooseneck mic and an MX150B Lavalier.
During presentations, the mics transmitted wirelessly to a four-channel MXWAPT4 transceiver mounted high in the conference suite. From there, audio passed via the standard Cat 6 cable installed throughout the Pavilion to the main Shure MXWANI4 four-channel audio interface in the rack room, and thence through a Shure SCM410e auto-mixer to consolidate the mic channels before they were fed into the UK Pavilion's AMX AV control system.
"We selected Shure MicroFlex Wireless for the UK Pavilion Conference Centre for a number of reasons," summarises Mike Bedford. "The system offers a good range of microphone transmitter types with excellent quality capsules, enabling adaptability with different presentation and room formats, and being a simple DECT-based system, with the in-room transceiver running on Cat 6 back to the rack, it was a fast and simple install."
The UK Pavilion was awarded eight design and international trade awards, including the Italian Association of Architects award for Best Pavilion Architecture, the BIE (Bureau International des Expositions) Gold Medal Award for Best Architecture and Landscape Design at Expo 2015, and the 2015 Blueprint award for the Best Public Use Project with Public Funding. According to Mike Bedford, the Microflex Wireless systems were also a great technical success throughout the six-month Expo. "The feedback we've had on the systems has been excellent - they met all the requirements, and just worked."
(Jim Evans)
