With a live audience of 12,000 the X Factor's dramatic and nail biting final between James Arthur and Jahmene Douglas was hosted by Dermot O'Leary alongside a panel of judges that comprised Gary Barlow, Nicole Scherzinger, Tulisa and Louis Walsh.
The show saw Immersive's multi-skilled team collaborate with production designers Florian Wieder and Matthias Kublik, along with lighting director Dave Davey, to deliver an ever-changing, visually exciting televisual spectacular.
Video was mapped across the entire upper tier of the X Factor audience by way of hand held pixel tablets, which ultimately formed an organic moving video screen as the shows special guest, Grammy Award winning Rihanna, performed.
The X Factor video worked in synchronicity with Dave Davey's striking lighting, filling the MEN Arena with an all-encompassing visual experience that embraced the voting audience, ensuring they were an integral part of the popular TV show.
"One 3x3 pixel tablet was allocated to each seat on the riser seat sections that ran around the perimeter of the stadium," explains Immersive's managing director Mark Calvert. "The system was used to display custom video content designed to interrelate with Dave Davey's impressive lighting design and complement Rihanna's electric performance.
"X Factor producers approached us quite late in the day," continues Calvert. "They presented us with a great opportunity to prove that our technical systems and processes are supremely capable of delivering appropriately responsive effects. Once more Immersive has demonstrated that our project team can deal with the high pressure demands of the Live TV environment."
The pixel tablets, designed and supplied by Tait Technologies, were those used in the audience on the Olympic Opening Ceremony across which Immersive so effectively pixel mapped the record breaking, audience wide, video content earlier this year.
"The reaction from the X-Factor audience to the pixel tablets was absolutely phenomenal on Sunday night. The amount of enthusiasm shown while dancing with the tablets and becoming part of the show was surreal. People are embracing this technology with such passion; we can't wait to see where it will appear next", says Frederic Opsomer, CEO, Tait Technologies
Immersive also employed two Avolites Media Infinity 8 servers - one as a backup - with a Sapphire Media Controller interface. The Server was triggered by a timecode sent out by Rihanna's FOH Engineer via Pro Tools.
(Jim Evans)
