South London based event technical production specialist PR Live supplied audio, video, lighting and staging for the 2016 Master Investor Show at the Business Design Centre in London, which attracted a record 4500 delegates, 100 exhibiting companies and featured over 50 presentations by CEOs, founders and investment gurus. Hailed as the “best ever” it is also the largest show of its kind in the UK.
PR Live has looked after the technical requirements for the last 14 years working directly for the client Ex Events and this year provided widescreen video and a sound system for the main plenary area and sound / AV systems for three breakout rooms and screens and control for many of the exhibition stands.
Ian Coull, PR Live’s MD was delighted to be working on the show again. “It has been interesting and inspirational to see the event grow and expand and itself invest in increased production values over the years,” he commented.
PR Live’s crew was project managed on site by Karl Travers and their first job was to install a 12 metre wide by 2.5 metre stage, behind which they rigged a 12 metre wide by 4 metre high screen made up from Absen A3 Pro 3 mm LED panels which looked spectacular. It was flown off a truss and points supplied by house riggers, Outback.
Two hangs of d&b T-Series line array loudspeakers flanked the screen left and right providing nice fine-tuned and clearly defined audio for the presentations and various VT play-ins and inserts, mixed via one of PR Live’s DiGiCo SD9 consoles.
The camera package comprised two Sony PMW EX3s for the main room, used for picking up the speakers and various other views from around the room for recording and a live stream, with an Analog Way Ascender at the core of the system, used for all the switching and screen management.
Other sources added into the mix were two presentation laptops running KeyNote and PowerPoint and a third containing VT playback and other content.
For the presentation laptops PR’s video technician Tyler Hilton created a custom resolution matching the content which was output at 3848 px from the MacBook Pros and scaled within the Ascender to fit the screen size of 3072 px wide by 1024 high exactly.
The Ascender was also used to create the PiPs for content on both the playback laptop and the two SDI camera feeds.
Tyler created all the show’s digital artwork and graphics including layouts, backdrops, sponsor screens, etc.
The plenary session area in the main Business design Centre space was lit with a series of Source Four profiles and PARs dotted around the roof trusses and a choice of DPA headsets and lapel mics were available for the speakers.
The breakout rooms each catered for 100 – 200 people and the technical rider for these included a sound system – a mix of E and T series from d&b – with a Yamaha LS9 mixing console in one room and QL1s in the others.
Screens in the breakout areas included a 95 inch Samsung LED in the largest one, with projection screens in the others fed by Christie 14K machines.
Scattered throughout the exhibition area were 26 Samsung 46 inch LED Smart TV screens used by a variety of exhibitors to display their AV materials and video content.
Lead show co-ordinator James Harper-Lewis of Ex Events reflected, “We were delighted to continue our positive working relationship with PR Live for Master Investor 2016 and to utilise their creative development and technical know-how to really drive innovation at the show”.
“In both the pre-event and onsite delivery, Ian Coull and his team worked tirelessly for the advancement of the show, and PR Live’s enthusiasm for development matched our desire to strengthen our offering to our exhibitors and attendees and continue the exciting growth across all areas of the show.”
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