The event, which comprised a 1500 delegate main auditorium and 9 breakout rooms in Excel's Capital Room, took place over three days in early July.
For the auditorium presentation, XL supplied a giant 20m x 11m projection screen, flown behind the stage. The screen was stretched on to about 1.8 tonnes of Tomcat truss surround and created the backdrop for the presentation as well as a projection surface for graphics and video content.
Four Panasonic PT-DZ21K projectors, each providing 20,000 Lumens, were used for the main screen to create a blended image. These had to be flown at difficult angles to the screen to avoid projecting on to any activity on stage. XL used a combination of Panasonic's Geo software and Coolux Pandora's Box media servers to solve this issue and warp the images to achieve the projection without shadows.
In addition, two Barco FLM HD-20 projectors were used to project content PiPs on to the main screen.
XL also supplied an HD camera system comprising 4 Sony HXC-100 cameras and PPU which was used to capture IMAG footage of the presentations and a TX record and two ISO records using AJA Ki-Pro hard drives.
Two 9m side screens, each paired with a Panasonic PT-DZ12000E 12K projector, showed IMAG of the presentations.
XL Video augmented the house lighting system with four Vari*Lite V*L 3000 Spot moving lights which were used with the clients own gobos to display the IIA logo. Eight ETC Source Four PARs were used for stage lights run from an Avolites console by lighting technician Martin Dudley.
For the audio in the main hall, XL combined their Soundcraft Vi4 mixing desk and Shure radio mic system with ExCel's in-house d&b Q-Series line arrays and E3 front-fills to ensure the sound was loud and clear across the auditorium. This system was managed for XL by Alex Mulrenan.
XL Video also supplied full video and audio packages for the nine breakout rooms in the Capital Suites, and these were Project Managed by Rich Pow.
Andy Mayneord comments, "This was quite a challenge to create with such a large screen, which with the low trim height was almost touching the stage. By projecting at about 35 degree angles we were able to fill the screen and avoid spillage onto the stage. We had to use the projectors head on to optimize the content or the pixel loss would have been too great, but the PiPS were well above head height. The guys from metroConnections were great to work with, and the teamwork between us ensured a flawless event."
(Jim Evans)
