Cisco Live! is the industry's premier education and training event for IT, networking and communications professionals, and XL Video's team was project managed by Nick Askew and Chris Ellis. Their brief included the provision of a diverse selection of AV set-ups to 42 breakout areas, some for up to 300 people.
An impressive main room hosted the plenary sessions and accommodated 3,500 delegates. A primary presentation stage was built in the centre of the room and connected via a runway to a satellite 'demo' stage that was used for product demonstrations and further presentations. The two stages and catwalk allowed speakers to get right in amongst the audience.
Eight large custom projection screens - all 10m wide and in 16:9 format - were installed in each corner and along each side of the room, their positions calculated to allow all 3,500 people attending the sessions an optimum view. Positioning these screens in relation to the seating layout was one of the biggest challenges when planning the event.
Numbered 1 - 8, the even numbered screens showed one set of content while the odd numbered ones showed different footage - all related to the presentation and onstage action.
The screens were each fed by a doubled-up pair of Barco 26K projectors for maximum intensity, and rigged on corresponding trusses above the central stage, focussed on their specific screen 'target'.
A Millumen media server was used for storing and replaying the playback video content and the presentation opening and closing VTs. It was chosen for the layer flexibility needed to run the show and the intuitive re-colouring which was applied live to some of the content to correspond with specific elements of the presentation ... including lasers.
The server outputs were fed to a Barco Encore system operated by Jonathan Bond who co-ordinated the screen management. Also feeding into this - via several fibre lines between the stages - were multiple laptops running Keynote and PowerPoint along with various devices and demo sources.
Two of XL's Sony HXC-100 broadcast cameras, both fitted with 86x lenses, were positioned at the FOH area and at one end of the room with two more RF controlled HXC-100s mounted on pedestals around the central stage.
In addition to these, feeds from four Bradley CamBall 2s - two on stands in the audience, and two overhead on trusses - were routed into two PPUs, a Panasonic HS400 and an HS 450.
The HS450 was mixed by Jerry Rosenfield and fed into the Barco Encore for outputting to screen. The Panasonic HS400 mix was cut by Jonathan Chard working for Cisco TV, and fed to Cisco's web TV streams.
XL also supplied six Samsung LCD comfort monitor screens around the room.
Nick Askew worked closely with George P. Johnson's production manager John Carss and executive producer, Ben Hawkins to deliver the Keynotes.
(Jim Evans)
