Belgium - The Flanders Technology and Innovation Festival (FTI) is a six-day celebration of technology and innovation hosted across different cities in Belgium. The entertainment event takes place at the Buda Island in Kortrijk and is organised by Hangar K. Split into five distinct areas, the festival aims to bring people together to experiment, strengthen bonds, innovate and tackle the technological challenges of the future.
Leyard Europe’s LN Series LED screens delivered for the Unwrap Arena at FTI. The space celebrates new technology with an educational bias. During the festival children, educators and interested adults are invited to test out new equipment and immerse themselves in gaming to find out more about this booming Flemish industry.
Chief catalyst, Vincent Vanderbeck, is the power behind Hangar K. The company has a passionate ambition to provide space for upcoming entrepreneurship, giving a boost to the digital industry in the process. The FTI festival is the embodiment of the work that Hangar K has done to support technological innovation in Belgium.
With its user-friendly design, the LN series proved to be a welcomed addition to the temporary space, creating at one location a Virtual Production area and a second large auditorium setup for the Unwrap Arena. The modular, lightweight die-cast aluminium structure meant the panels were easily assembled and disassembled. Displays could also be tailored to support specific application requirements and seamlessly integrated with other equipment and systems. This was useful in this situation due to the variety of display content and the customized setups.
Installed by the Leyard Europe team, the Unwrap Arena VP stage utilised a cornered arrangement, allowing visitors to be surrounded by game footage that could be seamlessly displayed thanks to the modular design of the LN series.
Audiences were intrigued by the arrangement, Vanderbeck explains. “Our Virtual Production area was intended to have a nice seamless display of the screens in a U form,” he says. “The result was impressive and most of our visitors were intrigued by the U shape and the seamless display.”
In terms of content creation for the VP stage, a Naturalpoint Optitrack solution was used to track the movements of the visitors and adjust in real time the rendered content on the screen. This truly immersing the visitors into a virtual world.
The second auditorium setup was used to display on a large-scale multi-player videogame. Visitors could play ‘retro-styled’ games on an impressive screen real-estate providing a unique gaming experience.
Cris Tanghe, vice-president product at Leyard Europe, expands: “Our new LN Series were the perfect fit for these temporary setups. The modular design not only allows easy installation, it also simplifies take down. Both setups were installed in matter of hours. Simple but yet providing a stunning visual result.”
“We were very grateful to be able to work with this new technology, the result was more exciting than we could have imagined,” he says. “We hoped to wow the audience and we really did.” Vanderbeck concludes.
