DMU – International Welcome Week

Premier provided AV support for the 2014 International Welcome Week at DMU

For the 2014 International Welcome Week, De Montfort University wanted to do something much more spectacular than in previous years.

Our brief focused on the ‘wow factor’, as this would be the very first impressions of the university for most of the overseas students present at the event.

After an initial site visit we began to put together a proposal that made the most of the large room, taking full advantage of the nine meter high ceiling. A full proposal was produced along with a detailed floor plan and full 3D rendering, which was quickly given approval following some minor changes and additions.

In the video below you can see both what our in house Production Designer created as well as what we produced on the day.    

On the day of the event our team arrived at just before 7am, and began by building the 30m long spans of truss that would hang in front of and behind the stage. We hung the starcloths and black drape from the rear truss, along with a selection of wash and beam moving lights, and two huge 16:9 projection screens. This effectively split the backstage area from the rest of the room, giving the performers an area to prepare out of view. On the front span of truss we added some additional moving head lights and Source Fours for illuminating the presenters on the stage.

As soon as the truss was finished and flown up out of the way we started on the performance area. We built a stage and an additional catwalk that allowed the performers and speakers to move along into the audience, adding an element of intimacy that we had been tasked to find.

In addition to the starcloth backdrop the client had loved our idea for creating a backdrop using our LED light bars. Combined with the LED floods situated at either side of the stage, and additional moving heads at stage height (and a little help from our haze machine), we were able to wash the entire room in colour during the show and create a light show that definitely ticked the ‘wow factor’ box.

The size of this room was an ideal environment to show off our popular (and powerful) L’Acoustics range of PA, using a pair of 12XTs and SB18s either side of the stage, and additional 12XTs around the room as delays. Our highly skilled sound engineer had no problems in getting the best out of the handheld and lectern microphones used, along with the video and presentations that were shown.

Our recent video purchases were perfect for this show; having brand new 5.6K projectors, hothead cameras, and 27” comfort monitors running in full 1080p meant that all of the video content looked as stunning as intended.

We’ve had nothing but positive feedback from the guests, staff and organisers of the event, all of whom were amazed at how we were able to completely transform the space so effectively.

We filmed a short time-lapse video of the install, this can be seen below.