XL Video Wins InAVate Award

XL Video – a UK leading live entertainment video rental specialist – has won the InAVate Award for “Most innovative Rental & Staging project (corporate)” for its work on the launch of 'High Speed 1' - St Pancras International Station, the high speed Cross Channel Rail Link and the UK’s new Eurostar terminal.
XL Video’s Business Development Manager Al Green was on hand to receive the Award on behalf of the company at a ceremony held at the Hotel Okura in Amsterdam, just ahead of the 2008 ISE exhibition last week. The Award was sponsored by Kramer Electronics and presented by leading UK trade magazine InAVate.
Green said: “High Speed 1 was an incredibly complex job in a very challenging location. (an operational railway station, a Grade I listed building and a fully CDM regulated building site, working alongside thousands of other show contractors and railway staff) Video was the largest technical department and it saw some extraordinary teamwork, determination and lateral thinking by all involved. They thoroughly deserve this Award.”
Working for Flux Events under the technical direction of John Farquhar-Smith, XL Video was the host broadcaster for HRH The Queen’s launch of High Speed 1.
The company supplied 23 mixed definition cameras and a full broadcast PPU/Barco Encore playback system for the event, with live video directed by Aubrey Powell (Po), along with 384 panels of Lighthouse R16 video screen which tracked along 110 metres above Platform 9 (suspended above 25,000 Volt overhead power lines) of the newly restored Barlow Shed at St Pancras. The screen split into eight sections and various other configurations during the hour long show.
XL supplied live camera feeds to the various international news organisations including BBC News and ITN, effectively becoming the event’s host broadcasters.
Powell worked closely with the show’s overall artistic director Mark Fisher, LD Durham Marenghi and the rest of the creative team, plus executive producer Jon Teeman and his client London & Continental Railways (LCR) to ensure this massive project ranked among the most memorable shows of the century.
The total number of XL crew was 75, who were co-ordinated by Natasha Fownes and crew chiefed on site by Stuart Heaney. The event was project managed for XL by Steve Greetham and Phil Mercer.
It’s the second year that XL Video has won an InAVate Award. Last year, XL’s Belgian operation collected one for their work with Dutch superstar, Marco Borsato.
(DS)