Delivering a big stage solution for Volkswagen
Encore was set the challenge to create a memorable high-end audio-visual feast communicating the ‘Iconic’ theme for the Volkswagen Customer Xperience Summit 2019. The event welcomed over 800 delegates in two streams from across the Volkswagen dealer network at the Royal International Convention Centre, Brisbane on 19-21 February 2019. Conceived and convened by Volkswagen Australia Director of Customer Experience and Marketing Jason Bradshaw, more than 800 Volkswagen Group Australia staff and delegates from the nationwide dealership network have attended Xperience Summit, what is believed to be the biggest customer training exercise held by an auto importer in this country.

The commanding stage set delivered a massive impact. Encore’s technical team created a mammoth screen consisting of 5 custom borderless screens combined to form one large canvas of 48m wide, this included two curved screens at either end to frame the 28m custom black acrylic stage. Over 150 pixel mapped LED neon tubes encased the top and bottom of the screens creating a futuristic feel and complementing video content. Two circular stages made of black reflective acrylic built either side of the screens created a platform for two of the latest Volkswagen vehicles launched at the event.

This impressive event delivered a series of captivating on-screen animated experiences on the huge projection surface which flowed thru to the pixel mapped lighting effects adding an extra level of excitement and drama. The central screen was also recessed to enable the speakers to make a dramatic entrance from behind the stage set.
By day the impressive stage was beautifully lit with red and blue with spotlights shining on the cars and reflective stage. During the conference the dramatic staging hosted Omar Johnson VP of Marketing for Apple, followed by presentations by a number of guest speakers and dealers. During the gala event in the evening the premium dealer awards were presented. The lighting show was ramped up to the maximum, plus pyrotechnics, the release of thousands of streamers and CO2 canon blasts to celebrate the major awards.

Michael Magafa, National Sales Director for Encore was delighted with the impact created by the giant stage set and the overall seamless delivery of Xperience Summit.

“The brief was to create a big impression, so we delivered a huge solution! The stage encased the entire room and the team designed an impressive lighting and projection solution to captivate the guests. I am very proud of the team’s flawless delivery for our client.”

Encore served up an incredible holographic-like experience for some of Australia’s leading event industry professionals, at the “Love and Desire” themed Top Secret 2019 Dinner. Hosted by the National Convention Centre Canberra (NCCC), as part of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), this dinner was part of a 3-day program run by the Canberra Convention Bureau (CCB). The theme for the 3 day familiarisation was “Love and Desire”, based on the current exhibition on display at the National Gallery of Australia.

Amway China returned to Australia for the sixth time with more than 6,000 guests for their annual 2019 Leadership Seminar, this time held in Cairns. Seven waves of guests attended the 4-day seminar and incentive program between 21 March – 15 April 2019. Designed and organised by Encore, the business sessions and concluding Gala Program treated guests to a spectacular experience including a special blended reality sequence created using layered multimedia, holographic effects and choreographed robotics show with a live performer.

The challenge was designing a never-before-seen experience for a well-travelled client whom has seen almost everything. Amway China chose the Australian Artillery and Armoury Museum (AAAM) as the venue to add an unexpected element to the program. As the largest privately owned collection of military vehicles in the Southern Hemisphere, it offered guests a rare tank show experience. At 4,280 square metres, the venue was also large enough to accommodate the production equipment for both the gala and business sessions, catering and other suppliers.

The Rainforest to Reef theme allowed Encore to design four distinct experiences: rainforest, beach, reef and river. Each environment was themed using a 270-degree screen that wrapped around the venue walls, customised soundscapes, roaming performers and reef-inspired table styling which incorporated lighting design. A key performance brought each environment to life and were each enhanced with creative technical production.

The ‘rainforest’ environment included a thunder and lightning performance by the Million Volt Man, one of the most extreme live performers who uses high-voltage Tesla coil in his stunts. For the ‘river’ component, Encore created a custom ‘Fish Medley’ act which included singing and dancing animated fish on computer-controlled robotic LED screens that moved with the music. The ‘beach’ environment included an artistic Fabric Ballet performance featuring 18 DMX controlled fans with choreographed dancing, while ‘reef’ featured a game simulation of an underwater treasure hunt made possible using a range of AV techniques. The journey saw a live performer participate in the underwater adventure using layered multimedia with a holographic mesh screen, LEDs and choreographed robotics show.

The end result was a memorable gala dinner that ended the international incentive on a high. Encore show producer Andrew MacColl said guests were blown away by the 270-degree multimedia projection, holographic projection and synchronised robotics.

“The creative event design was matched with cutting-edge use of technology to create an amazing experience for guests,” he said.

“Working in such a unique venue had its challenges, but also many benefits in that it allowed our team the opportunity to maximise their creativity to bring to life a blank canvas. Special Event Director, John Schryver, designed a truly unique and immersive experience which will undoubtedly be remembered long after the event. The team bought his design to life and delivered the series of events flawlessly.”

 

See also:

• News Release: Encore produce nature inspired Leadership Seminar for 6,000 guests in Cairns for Amway China
• Highlight events of 2019

In May our Encore team in Auckland partnered with real estate brand, Barfoot & Thompson, to deliver their annual awards night in recognizing high performing staff and offices. Held in the Ballroom at SKYCITY Convention Centre Auckland, we delivered a very grand, decadent awards setting for 520 guests. Providing an end-to-end solution for this long-term client, we designed a big Hollywood awards style evening – big custom stage set, with custom on-screen content, red carpet, lots of gold and warm tones. Encore provided a total production solution from initial concept through to execution and management on show night. Upon arrival guests were ushered down a glamorous red carpet posing in front of the 4m media wall to have their ‘paparazzi’ shot taken. Being an awards night, the hero of the event design was the bespoke stage set comprising of 2 x 15m wide screens, 8 hexagonal panels and a large 15m x 4.5m low res LED screen – the entire design spanning a total of 32m wide! A challenge in the production process was finding projector fabric large enough for the screens, leaving our team to import it from the UK as there is no seamless fabric tat large in New Zealand. Leading up to this impressive stage set, our team built a custom grand staircase in a hexagonal shape to complement the hexagonal screen panels and the gold wire hexagonal table centrepieces.

We collaborated closely with B&Ts marketing agency who was responsible for producing their on-screen content. It was important we met week in the lead up to the event to review the content and provide technical feedback to make sure it was feasible and provide creative insight as to what could be possible. Our production team brought this content to life on stage using our Watchout media server and some of the largest projectors in the country – 4 x 30K projectors – which included some projection mapping prowess to line up the single image across the entire set including the hexagonal panels. Lighting design comprised of static, amber-coloured pin spots lighting each onto each table, 8 profile lights rigged to the ceiling with 16 from the floor, casting beams of light around the room with gobo beams breaking them up. During each award a ballyhoo lighting effect was used giving it that Hollywood awards feel “similar to a lighting drumroll effect”.

We created a beautiful canopy effect on the ceiling using luxurious gold draping interspersed with warm fairy lights with black draping to dress the venue walls. Guest were treated to a mesmerising performance by a trio with the Grand Piano as we all as a special performance from popular New Zealand singer-songwriter Lizzie Marvelly. The choice of gold tones, warm lighting, a flashy dramatic stage set with big, orchestral music all worked beautifully together to create one memorable awards night.

The 1,600-person event called Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend is now in its 19th year and was held at Crown Palladium. It is presented by the Women for Challenge Committee and Bed Bath N’ Table. The 2019 theme, Let’s Fiesta, incorporated bright colours, a fun atmosphere and big personalities.  The event saw the Encore team supporting an all-female event by incorporating colourful paper flowers made by mothers and their children living with cancer into beautiful centrepieces. It was a small touch that told a significant story.

Catrina Bennell, General Manager Victoria, Encore said the centrepieces are just one piece in a large event that shared the important journey of families who have a child with cancer. “We wanted to create an event where potential donors and sponsors are inspired to give money to support this important charity.

“When the event manager for Challenge, Jane Rainey asked us if we could include the flowers made by the children and their families, we thought this would be a fantastic way to connect the children with the event. It made a real connection between our guests and the reason they were there,” said Bennell.

The Tourism Accommodation Australia recently hosted 750 guests at The Star Sydney, for their annual Tourism Accommodation Awards (TAA) night. The much-anticipated evening was again assigned to Encore Event Technologies, who created a beautifully styled event. The awards provide a platform for measuring and promoting service excellence by hotels. The client requested a concept that complimented the design of the annual logo created for the event. This year was a swirling gold logo which our team translated into a glamorous look for the event through a staging and theming solution including stage design and multimedia. The team created a custom stage set comprising custom projection screens shaped like the Sydney city skyline. Beautiful animated artworks were projection mapped on to the screens throughout the night. Event Feed was used on the night to enable guests to post their photos to the big screen during the night and tag the event #TAAAwards2019 to integrate the shots onto the TAA’s social media.

For nearly a decade, Encore have had the pleasure of working with Tourism Accommodation Australia (VIC) to deliver their annual awards. As with every year, the brief is to deliver a totally new and immersive experience, and this year’s theme gave Encore the permission to deliver just that.  Nearly 500 esteemed guests, nominees and representatives from Victoria’s finest accommodation hotels attended the awards night at Grand Hyatt Melbourne in late June. Driven by the night’s entertainment Encore were engaged to design an evening to emulate the experience of attending the theatre. Taking a fresh approach to a ‘theatre’ themed stage set, Encore chose to incorporate both the back and front of house of a theatre as a homage to those in the room. Looking not only at the glitz and glamour, but all the hard working people behind the scenes.

From the client,

“I want to extend a big thank you to Encore for all your help and dedication on our TAA (Vic) Awards.

Your flexibility with last minute changes, and an ever changing event brief, all the video content – I know it was a lot to ask, and you really made the whole process so easy and flawless come the event night.

Thank you. We look forward to next year!”

Read More >>

Encore produced the Hawthorn Football Club 2019 Season Launch which saw the AFL team receive their official guernsey for the season in front of VIPs, including Club President The Hon Jeff Kennett, coaches, fans and media.

This year the Club wanted to create a new event design to the previous year and the team rose to the challenge providing a creative solution. Encore’s render to reality services played a huge part in helping bring the vision to life which you can see the attention to detail in this album.

The team carefully planned the stage setup as it had to be the focal point of the room and be big enough to host all the players at once. The team created lifelike renders of the room design from various angles so that the client could precisely imagine their vision for the event. The stage set was created facing the corners, rather than along the straight wall of the room for a dynamic room look.

The team used a range of audio visual solutions at the MCG designing a tower formation of LEDs for a sharp and effective look. The set featured the Harlequin design 3D Scenic Panels which worked well to Hawks’ branding; the lighting colours were set to the gold Hawthorn colours – basking the room in the brand.

The Encore team worked together with the Hawthorn Digital Manager to develop content which showcased footage of the players filmed during pre-season. This was overlayed by the branding and colour schemes of the season. The result was a powerful presentation that was dynamic and struck an emotional chord generating excitement for the upcoming season.

With only a week to design, produce and deliver this event, the Encore team worked fast to deliver their vision for the event. The result was a sophisticated set-up, seamless delivery and the Hawthorn team were completely delighted seeing their Hawks’ brand come to life.

“ A massive thank you for all the work you did for our epic AV at Season Launch. There have been so many comments about how good it looked and what an impact it made! You are clearly very passionate about your work and more so in getting the best outcome for your clients, so we are very grateful!”

Every year the Crows host a fundraising event in support of the Adelaide Crows Children’s Foundation. The event is one of the Club’s largest events of the year. This year was a visual extravaganza with a croquet theme, a fun play-on-word on the Club’s name, the Adelaide Crows.  As the club’s official audio visual partner, Encore was thrilled to be delivering the event at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for another year for their 1000 valued guests.

Encore in Fiji were engaged by leading US health food company, The Wonderful Company, to deliver their annual sales conference for 200 high-performing team members in tropical Fiji. Held between 3 – 7 June 2019 at the InterContinental Fiji Golf & Spa Resort, as the in-house AV and event services partner, Encore collaborated with Rosie Hollidays who provided all thee styling, decor and concept for the event. The event program comprised a Welcome Dinner at Kama beachfront, followed by two full days of conference sessions, a White party dinner on Thursday before a final day of conference sessions before flying home.

The event vision was clear from the outset and the client’s prior production experience helped make the process run smoothly. The final concept was significantly larger than what was initially proposed as The Wonderful Company grew more excited about the event and more confident in Encore’s capabilities. The Welcome Dinner held on the foreshore of the resort was all about setting the tone for the event to come. There was lots of vibrant, colourful lighting to echo the tropical surroundings with guests even treated to a special ‘welcome drink’ in a kava ceremony – a traditional Fijian welcoming ritual.

The tropical vibes continued into the design of the main conference in the Ballroom; the stage was dressed with a cane matting, the bright palm-tree imagery on the large 20ft x 11ft rear projector screen, as well as the suspended hollow wooden hearts which were used as a branding device. Across all of the events, The Wonderful Company’s heart-shaped logo was incorporated in various ways from a gobo projected onto the roof at the Welcome Dinner, the suspended wooden hearts in the conference design and a special custom-made 5m flaming heart for the closing White Party.

The scope and production management involved with delivering this event on the 4^th tee of the golf course presented many challenges for the Encore team to overcome. There was actually a pro golf tournament happening at the time, which meant Encore had to coordinate the bump-in to occur at a specific time and work around their schedule. An event of this scale meant we were coordinating 9 external suppliers, with a tight turnaround on a remote location, definitely presented many challenges. However the event went off without a hitch – even the ‘59 Chevelle car used for as a photo prop made it through Fijian customs just in time.

Lighting was key to the event. We started the night with a blue wash, cloaking the event and which made the all-white guests and décor stand out. Then as the night progressed we continued to changed the lighting colours and effects using our wirelessly controlled uplighting to suit the mood and energy as the event continued into the wee hours.

As the big finale guests were treated to a spectacular fireworks display. A wonderful ending to The Wonderful Company’s sales conference.