The event was project managed on site for XL by Bill Hughes and for Outlook by their head of events, Iain Liddiard. It was designed by Outlook and attended by around 750 of the client's top executives and sales teams within the EMEA & Canada region.
The gala dinner took place on the first night in the hotel's Congress Centre and the room then had to be transformed into the main plenary and conference session for the following day.
XL's crew also rigged sound and lighting systems for the evening after-party in the Skyloft at the hotel.
XL and Outlook have worked together for about 11 years, and Iain Liddiard comments, "It is a relationship based on mutual respect, exceptional levels of technical support and exemplary crewing and project management"
For the plenary session, XL installed a twin screen projection solution to display presentation, live camera and VT playback content. The screens were 5m wide in 16:9 format and were front projected onto by two Panasonic PT-DZ21K projectors rigged on a truss at the back of the room.
To meet the requirement to replay two separate sources simultaneously, a GV Turbo hard drive player was used for control.
XL supplied a PPU with three Sony HXC-100 HD cameras, two positioned at the back of the room fitted with J70 long throw lenses, and one stage left on a tripod specifically to capture side shots of key and guest speakers.
A d&b Q series PA was specified and installed by XL, complete with Yamaha LS9 32 channel desk and 12 channels of Radio microphones. The Q series was chosen for its high clarity output and excellent handling of the spoken word.
Lighting was designed by Nick Knowles, a regular XL programmer / operator and consisted of around 60 moving lights - a mix of Robe and Clay Paky - plus approximately 150 x LED battens and around 30 x LED up-lighters dotted around the room with an Avolites Tiger Touch for control.
After the dinner and entertainment, those delegates wanting to continue the networking and fun into the night could rock-up at the after-party in the hotel's Skyloft bar. Here XL installed a d&b C7 sound system and Yamaha LS9 16 channel console, accompanied by a full DJ set up plus funky lighting provided by Robe multi-purpose Pointe moving lights, Robe's little LEDBeam 100s and Clay Paky A.Leda K10s LED washes with another Tiger Touch for control.
XL's sound engineer was Alistair Westell, their senior rigger was Eric Porter and the video racks engineer was Gerry Corry.
Iain Liddiard concludes, "As producers, we and our technical partners like XL, bring the 'art' and the nuance to the party."
(Jim Evans)
