Brief
To design and manage an event capable of hosting 300 people for an awards ceremony that celebrates excellence within KFC’s franchisee businesses.
KFC wanted their success over the past year to be celebrated in style and working with Inspired Thinking Group, Premier looked after not only the AV production but the management of the event. The full scope of this event required extensive planning and would require departments to communicate effectively. The venue brief from the client was for a space that would incorporate both the evening venue and accommodation for all guests, with all locations to be based down south, closer to the KFC head office.
The Event Management team did extensive research into 5 different locations for the client to choose between, the selected location for this event was Sofitel Hotel in London’s Heathrow Terminal 5 and Premier provided full Event Management, Production including Audio, Video, Lighting, Rigging, Staging, Set & Bespoke Props / Lighting Fixtures.
Process
To aid both the event management and production of the event, Premier conducted a site visit to get a better understanding of the capability of the venue for power & rigging and how this would best fit what Premier had in mind for the event. Everything down to power consumption on each phase, rigging points, location of control, set height and noise level capabilities.
Premier arranged the Aurora Suite at the Sofitel for the event to take place in, this room had Unistrut running the length of the room which would let us hang custom filament lamp features from anywhere giving more flexibility to positioning etc. KFC also asked Premier to design & build a range of bespoke onstage props including neon set panels which outline the famous chicken bucket and their logo to sit at the side of stage as well as a custom lectern, drum kit and light boxes which fit the KFC brand perfectly and can be repurposed at future KFC events.
The neon sign was somewhat a challenge for Premier as neon is only 1mm thick and transporting this would require extra care. Premier first built the back-set panel and purchased a custom set print so it would fit in with all the other set panels. This was then sent off to have neon tubing and transformers attached. To ensure safety of the neon panels, a trolley was manufactured to carry them and helped speed up the installation process, overall.
Equipment Used
For this event Premier deployed a range of kit across audio, video, lighting, rigging & staging to bring this event together.
In the drinks reception area a 98″ 4K screen was used to display the table plan which we provided digital artwork for. A 2.5m tall metal chicken was also fabricated for the event which became a real talking point amongst the guests.
For audio Premier proposed ground stacked KARA & SB18’S left & right of stage fed by the L’Acoustics LA8 amplifiers which come in Triple Racks for ease of use and setup. Video projection was covered by the Panasonic RZ970 10K projector which was rigged in the centre of the room feeding a 16x9ft screen, this gave guests the ability to see clearly see presentations whilst the presenter would have 43” comfort monitors with a duplicate feed.
At control for audio & video we had a Pulse rack switcher which simply takes all inputs and shows the preview / program output feed via SDI, this also allows us to do keying features such as Chroma, Luma & Linear keying easily masking different images into one. For Audio we had the Yamaha QL5 being fed by 2 RIO stage boxes which are connectable by network protocol, Dante. Dante can be found across all event types in today’s industry, its ease of use and capability to transmit up to 64 channels duplex at 100mb/s is the quality required for corporate events such as the Franchisee Awards.
Using this network setup has massive advantages over an analogue configuration as there is more redundancy, less cabling and the network configuration consists of VoIP & QoS (Voice over IP & Quality of Service) meaning audio signals are prioritised over other network traffic. Lighting this event was catered for with a mixture of Elation & Chauvet fixtures to light the stage and uplight the room itself. These were all controllable over ArtNet via the use of the Avolites Quartz.
The Elation Artiste Davinci was opted for on the truss runs as at a distance, the full potential of its ultra-wide 6 – 48 degree zoom, CMY colour mixing and CTO colour correction capability could be utilised. Room wash from height was easily covered by the Chauvet R3 wash fixture and 8 of these easily did the 40m of room wash required. Beam lighting effects were positioned on the stage itself and were used as part of the award stings.
Premier also installed items such as a 9x3m stage at a height of 0.3m, custom filament lamp frames hanging up to 50 x E27 G80 lamps on each one and the magic mirror which is now famous across all event types, adding to the party atmosphere the awards evening was going for.
Event Management
In the lead up to the event our event management liaised with the venue and the client about a wide range of issues, ranging from access times, bedroom allocations through to the menu for the evening.
On they day, our team spent time ensuring all guests were allocated the correct rooms prior to the event and had a separate check in desk for them when they arrived to avoid queues.
Guests were then directed down stairs for a drinks reception before entering the main room for the dinner, entertainment and awards.
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