XL was working for London based production company Lodestar, and their project manager was Rich Pow. The brief included providing rear projection and control for the Keynote presentation plus a short concluding video, together with a full sound system and radio mics for the presentation speakers.
The Roadshow was specially tailored to an exclusive audience of around 70 key clients in each city. It highlighted the many facilities, advanced technology and excellent transportation links offered by Felixstowe - 'Port of Britain', one of the UK's leading and busiest container ports.
The clean, contemporary, aesthetically pleasing setting for the event was designed to be installed in a few hours by two XL Events crew and others, and to accommodate 70 attendees.
Says Rich Pow, "Everything had to be delivered to the highest standards in a short timescale, a task at which we are well practiced technically. The logistics were the main challenge. Locations included Newcastle, Manchester, London, Birmingham and Ipswich. Each day the rooms were different and so the set up varied, but the end results were identical in look, feel and quality."
The projection onto a 2.1m wide rear projection screen was delivered by two Panasonic PT DZ6710E projectors - one running live and one as a 'hot' backup - with both the presentation and video running from MacBook Pro laptops.
The projectors were rigged on a racking tower behind the set back wall, fitted with wide angle lenses and fed through a Folsom switcher used to size and send the outputs to screen.
A comfort monitor was supplied at the front of the stage for the various speakers to view the presentations and speaker notes as they progressed.
The audio system was designed to be appropriate and adaptable for all the spaces and was optimised for speech. It comprised a Nexo PS8 speaker system on stands left and right at the front of stage, plus Nexo LS400 subs on the ground to which added a pleasant richness to the sound. The amplification and processing was also all Nexo.
Sound was mixed via a Soundcraft desk, supplied complete with KT graphics and a Tascam CD player.
The latest Shure UR4D wireless microphone system was supplied for all of the main speakers which works on the K4E frequency. XL also supplied a full RTS wired comms system.
(Jim Evans)
