Arranged and managed by Stephen Rickard at Blitz, the stand operated as an input station; it incorporated an array of AV equipment designed to encourage visitors to key in their thoughts and ideas about possible future inventions and lifestyle ideas that might improve the travelling experience.
These visitor contributions then appeared interactively in 'clouds' above a full motion image of the Virgin train, displayed on six horizontally mounted seamless plasma screens. This method of data capture ensured that Virgin would be able to provide specific and relevant information about Virgin Trains to the visitors based on their stated individual preferences and interests.
Dan Mason of 2LK Design explains: "We were clear about what we wanted the stand to achieve, but were unsure of how to implement this technically in order to achieve our objectives. A lot of exhibition stands are big and loud but don't actually do much; we wanted to create a truly interactive stand for Virgin, so we approached Blitz to help us design and implement the project."
Blitz's technology design included six Orion plasma screens, Dataton Watchout display graphics, Medalion show control, Viewscape image processing, a bespoke database application for the data entry terminals and Doremi hard disc video replay.
Paul Hutton, managing director of Blitz, explains: "By creating this interactive stand using a full range of technologies, we were able to encourage customers to really engage with the Virgin exhibition stand and make the most of their products on offer. We have done many interactive projects before and the results on this event were fantastic. The stand set the standard for the way in which AV can be used moving forward and we were very happy with the effects this project created."
(Jim Evans)
