Stageco was commissioned to design and build a series of video wall structures across five outdoor locations in Vancouver's Whistler Mountains and at the BC Place Stadium in downtown Vancouver.
Stageco's team of engineers and R&D specialists designed a series of bespoke solutions for each location. The differing requirements of each support structure were determined by location, weight and size of the screens and the required viewing angles for spectators.
Stageco managed the design process, transport logistics and crew in advance of the icy build to start in November 2009, planning for the extreme weather conditions and transportation of material across mountainous areas.
Project manager Thierry Nataf reports: "The Whistler Creekside, the site for the Alpine skiing was a very challenging build for the team, working on the side of a steep mountain at over 800m high and in snowy, wintery conditions. The structures across the sites had to support varying sized video screens and scoreboards, as well as take into account the spectator's visibility and location."
On Cypress Mountain, Stageco built two video screen structures to relay the snowboard, ski cross and freestyle action. A further three video screens were used on the Nordic Ski area for the cross country, biathlon and ski jump events.
Inside the BC Place Stadium, Stageco designed and built a further three video screen structures to relay the opening and closing ceremonies for the Games and nightly Victory Ceremony presentations to 55,000 spectators. The three screens, measuring 47m² and two 96m² displays were built into the stadium's infrastructure and were built in January ready for this month's opening ceremony.
Tom Bilsen, Stageco's operations manager added, "We used the network of Stageco offices to transport the material required, shipping three containers from Stageco International head offices in Belgium and a further three trucks of mostly scaffolding from Stageco US."
(Jim Evans)
