XL Events Excelled In 2009

A leading events management business has been celebrating a successful 2009.
XL Events enjoyed a very busy year supporting major national events such as The Clothes Show Live hosted at the Birmingham NEC in December for Haymarket Exhibitions.
Production Manager Paul Divine worked with XL Events on an ambitious set where all three screens were built onto revolves.
He said a full day went into constructing the screens to the clients desired configuration, plus a further day for cabling and programming to ensure that the content fitted perfectly across all six screen facets.
The content was stored and played back via an XL Video twin Catalyst media server programmed by Ross Williams. Catalyst content also appeared on 2 IMAG projection screens between performances, routed via a Sony DFS PPU. The cameras were XL's new Sony HXC-100 units.
Tim Riley, Project Manager for XL Events said: "This was a challenging yet rewarding project.
"We had great support from Stage One who created the structure supporting the screens and the dressing at the back, and coupled with cool graphics, all elements combined to make an excellent show."
In November, XL Events secured the contract to supply video for this year's Wella International Trend Vision Awards event, held at the now closed 'Berlin Tempelhoff Airport'.
The event was organised and produced by Jack Morton Worldwide (London) and encompassed all elements for a runway show, a stage show and a large 'zoned' breakout room, all set within two of the old airport hangers (once part of the Skybridge Airport into West Berlin).
The video supplied by XL Events included a huge 100 square metre LED screen (made up from Pixled F11 panels) used as a central backdrop to the stage. This was flanked by two front projection screens of 60 square metres, fed by Barco FLM 20K projectors.
Further to the main projection and LED, there was a requirement for 3 relay screens around a central truss that flew in and out, and these were fed by XL’s new 10K Panasonic PT-DW1000E projectors – all double stacked with "hot" back-up units.
All video was controlled and routed via a Barco Encore screen management system and was fed content from Catalyst, DVS Pronto and Keynote, all run on Mac Book Pro laptops.
During December, XL Events was involved with Speakeasy, who were producing a five venue nationwide road show featuring 22 presentations to a total of 13,000 personnel from a financial services organization.
The presentation delivery concept involved creating the look and feel of a book on a flat projection surface with the perception of the pages actually turning.
This was achieved using a Pandora's Box media server's Z axis to create the depth of field, and then surface mapping the output giving the illusion of a curved screen.
Staged at the Rome Hilton Cavalieri in late September, XL Events also provided full video services for the Presidents Awards/Conference for the 3rd year running. Supporting US agency Equinox Creative, XL Events supplied Barco CLM 10K projectors, Sony D55 cameras, Shure Radio mics, D&B Q7 speakers and a Yamaha M7CL 48 channel mixer.
A major highlight of the year was the Mini United event at Silverstone Race Track, Northamptonshire, UK.
XL Events supplied site-wide audio and video services for the three-day Mini United event - arguably one of the biggest corporate events of the year - celebrating the 50th birthday of Britain's most iconic popular vehicle.
XL Events was awarded the role of technical partner for audio and video by BMW’s lead agency, George P Johnson and also won the contract to supply audio and video at the parallel running International Mini Dealer Conference, staged at the Excel Centre in London.
Mini United took over the entire infield (centre) area of Silverstone's famous racing circuit, providing a fusion environment melding the worlds of corporate presentation, public event and live music show.
Site wide audio was designed and project managed by Rich Rowley, while Steve Greetham looked after all the video requirements for the whole event.
(BMcC/GK)