Conference & Awards at Hilton Birmingham Metropole

Premier supported our client with AV production for this conference and awards dinner in the Palace suite at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole

Our client approached us in January 2015 and asked us to provide AV support for their upcoming event. The event itself took the form of a conference in the afternoon with a dinner and entertainment in the evening.

The venue for the event was the Palace Suite at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. With us being based in Leicester this is a venue that we provide AV solutions for a number of clients at each year.

We split our proposal to the client up into each of the core areas that were provided, each of which is outlined below.

 

Set & Stage

The brief included a large conference set to cover the majority of the width of the venue. We custom fabricated and then covered the 46’ set in a mixture of red and white felt. A large central screen (16’ x 9’) was installed as well as two smaller screens (12’ x 6’9”), all of these screens were rear projection. A mixture of 7k lumen and 5.6k lumen Panasonic HD projectors were used to ensure that all 350 delegates could see the content clearly.

An 8m x 4m stage was installed in the center of the conference set. The stage itself was carpeted in red with red casement material to cover the front and sides.

The set was lit using the super bright Elation SixBar 1000 LED battens. These units were patched into the lighting desk allowing us to dim and then change the colours when appropriate.

 

Video

An Analogue Way Pulse2 video control system was used to ensure that all content (PowerPoint, video and live feeds) could be seamlessly switched between the 3 projection screens.

Video content was played back using the industry standard Playback Pro software and ran from an Apple MacBook Pro. The PowerPoint presentation was played though our dedicated show Laptop, with a second machine also running in parallel for redundancy. Live video content came from the client’s camera and in via HDMI cable.

An additional 8x LCD screens were placed around the perimeter of the venue. These screens were used to display a number of the client’s logos and were set to loop throughout the event. 42” screens were also used as comfort monitors for the presenters.

 

Audio

The PA system used for the event had to be smart in appearance for the day event as well as be loud enough for the live band and DJ in the evening.

After using the L-Acoustics Sound Vision software to establish the optimum system to use it was decided that a PA system consisting of 6x KARA, 4x SB18’s and 2x 8XT’s was ideal.

We were able to fly the KARA speakers from the ceiling of the venue alleviating the need for many speaker stands to be placed around the perimeter of the venue. The 8XT’s were positioned on the front of the stage to act as fills.

All audio was ran though a Yamaha LS9-32 digital desk. Wired comms were also installed allowing all of the technicians to be on point during the show itself.

 

Lighting

The lighting chosen needed to be versatile so that it could be used both for the day and evening element of the event.

During the site visit with the client it was decided that the best solution was to run 3 lengths of truss at intervals down the Palace Suite. The truss used was Prolyte H30V and the truss runs were 1x 15m and 2x 10m.

In terms of fixtures we used 6x ETC Source 4 profile lights to illuminate the stage when the speaker or band were live. 12 of the extremely versatile Elation Platinum Spot 5R moving heads were flown. These were set to red for the conference element and loaded with break-up gobos, during the evening they were programmed to provide a disco effect as well as to illuminate the 2x 50cm mirror balls.

To add additional lighting we also installed 8 of the beam effect ADJ Event Bars. Four of these fixtures were flown from the overhead truss and the additional 4 clamped to scaffold vertically to the side of the stage to add some visual eye-candy.

Elation SixBar 1000’s were also placed behind each plasma screen to add an additional wash to the walls of the venue. All lighting was controlled and programmed onto an Avolites Quartz lighting desk.

 

Décor & Entertainment

As well as providing all of the above AV equipment, Premier also provided a number of additional items. During the room turnaround we installed 8m of white pleated drape to cover the central section of the conference set. When uplit using the Elation SixBars this looked very effective.

A 22ft x 16ft white starlit dance floor was also installed in the room turnaround. Although primarily an AV Company we hold large stocks of the white pleated drape and dance floors.

We provided on of our DJs for the evening element of the event as well, as you can see from the video below he had the dance floor full.