Matt Hampson Ball 2018

Brief

To provide full production for the Matt Hampson Foundation fundraiser at Stapleford Park. Production elements included audio for all 180 guests, lighting for the evening disco and room lighting along with video using 5 repeater screens all controlled by our in-house technicians. The event was to showcase the work Matt has done with the foundation and to raise additional funds using a live auction shown across all 5 screens around the room.

The evening overall would consist of a dinner followed by speeches, Q&A’s with some of Rugby’s biggest names and a live auction. After an evening of fundraising and gaining knowledge into the Matt Hampson Foundation a disco followed which consisted of a DJ and live saxophonist. Premier were tasked with providing AV production and event management to ensure smooth running of the event.

 

Process

Once a brief had been supplied by the client for this event, we were tasked with building a quotation of the client’s requirements mixed with our recommendations to get the best out of the evening. Doing this allowed the client to feedback their thoughts and allowed us to accurately quote the AV requirements for the evening.

With Premier’s hire stock being so vast and diverse, it gave us the ability to provide various components without having to deal with many external suppliers. Overall, we looked after audio, lighting, LED backdrop, staging, video, tables, dancefloor, table centres, uplighting, chair covers and table covers.

With all these aspects being brought together to form a bespoke event unique to the fundraising event, we provided a Production Manager to oversee the technical aspect with this person working alongside a dedicated Event Manager who Premier also provided. This working ethic and structure allowed the event to run smoothly and ensure nothing is forgotten for the entirety of the event.

To give the client and the venue a better idea of the event, we made use of our in-house ability to draw accurate CAD plans outlining the positioning of everything from tables to dancefloor to speakers and staging! This gave the client something to work from when building up to the event and allows them to realise what is possible and how it can be achieved.

 

Equipment Used

Audio:

For audio in the venue we opted for a multiple speaker type setup with 4x L’Acoustic X8 speakers acting as wider room fill to deal with speeches and VT audio. Following this left and right of stage the setup was ground stacked SB18’s with pole mounted 12XT’s, allowing the later part of the evening to have all audio focused towards the dancefloor with the vital low end 30hz reproduction created perfectly by the L’Acoustic SB18. The audio system makes use of Dante which samples all audio at 48kHz with a bit depth of 32 bits giving clear audio reproduction. The hardware behind controlling and routing all audio was the Yamaha QL5 being fed by a RIO 1608-D stage box.

Lighting:

We believe that the  lighting used is an important aspect of every event, we looked at how we could utilise lighting to improve the look and feel of the venue. To achieve this and make an idea turn into reality, we made use of the increasingly popular Astera AX3 uplighting element. We used these in 2 separate environments, the first being underneath every podium acting a truss toner. With Prolyte H30V offering a shiny silver finish, this could be highlighted by the AX3 nicely and offer a ‘glowing ripple’ effect. Furthermore, another setting these uplighters were used in was for table centres. Premier have recently invested in acrylic table numbers which sit on top of a tiny black box and with an AX3 placed underneath it, it lights the entirety of the table number. The ability of these doesn’t stop at being small and compact, they can be wirelessly controlled from an app or lighting controller and we used this to our advantage. The uplighting centres and podiums could be lit a certain colour in relation to the current lighting state.

Situated at the top of the truss podiums were Elation Platinum 5R Spot’s, great moving fixtures for short range disco lighting and comes with a variety of features including 11° > 42° variable zoom beam angle along with 22 gobos and 8 dichroic colours.

Video:

Video was a key part of this event with it allowing guests to see videos relating to the Matt Hampson cause and the work that has been done in recent years. Alongside this requirement was the need to relay a live rolling auction in which guests could bid from their table using a tablet. All video was routed through a Pulse PLS350 which comes in a handy pre- built rack and offers a preview / program output viewer locally. The video system setup consisted of 2x 50” Panasonic screens with 2x 65” Panasonic screens around the room with our massively popular Samsung QM98F 4K screen at centre stage. All were brought together and able to share content through the use of the Decimator. This tiny red device has 4x SDI outputs with 1x HDMI output & 1x HDMI input. With configurations available such as HDMI in > SDI out and vice versa, it’s a unique handy box that turns any video system, professional and redundant.

Effects:

Premier deployed various effects that make events unique and we look to customise the products uses to get the most out of them. For the dancefloor we placed a 16ft x 16ft dancefloor in front of stage with the incorporated LED starlit effect which could be controlled by our technicians and synced with the starcloth behind the stage. Both starcloth and dancefloor were set to static for the dinner section of the evening to avoid taking attention from presenters and guests however once the disco had begun, we were able to choose from a variety of presets which allow the LED’s to ‘twinkle’ and flash. In the entrance area of the venue we expanded on the colourful uplighting found within the event space itself. The Showtec Event Spot 1800 are silver uplighting elements which are battery powered and portray little footprint on the entrance area and with a 10-hour battery life, we could leave them running either showing a static colour or rotating through various colours.

 

Event Management

One of Premier’s event managers, Francesca, liaised with the client before the event and was on site during it. She ensured that the suppliers such as the DJ, Saxophonist, Photographer etc all arrived at the correct time and were looked after throughout the event. She also liaised with the venue to ensure that the client could relax and enjoy the event itself.

 

Feedback

“THANK YOU SO MUCH for being absolutely incredible on Saturday!”

“You guys are absolutely incredible and we don’t know what we would have done without you!”

Billie Bogg