KIA Motors UK

SFL put on a great show for KIA Motors at their Christmas Conference

SFL were busy in December having been selected once again by the prestigious Surrey-based events company 4D Productions, to provide the complete technical production solution for the KIA Motors UK's 2004 conference.

Background

This year has seen some major changes at KIA Motors UK, the UK's fastest growing automotive brand. With sales up over 50% on 2003, the company has overtaken brands like Seat, Saab and Suzuki. The Kia Picanto is the European Car of the Year and won an award from Autocar for best car advertising campaign for 2004. This was the background to a design brief that emphasised the importance of Kia's energy, flexibility, entrepreneurial spirit, and adaptability. The message was clear "We don't recognise any barriers to growth. And we're very ambitious. Our ambition is to be a leading global player."

Overview

The event took place in the heart of London. The day consisted of both an afternoon conference and an evening dinner. SFL Director, Matt McCarty, worked closely with the creative producer to design the technical solution and manage the rollout of the event. Our involvement included production management, sound, lighting and AV design, provision of all technical equipment, staging, star cloth, autocue services, communications system and supply of the massive 70' wide, high brightness, truss mounted front projection screen. All this took a team of around 30 people working as two teams over a 30 hour period with three 7.5 tonne trucks full of technical equipment, staging and set.

Conference

The carefully planned event schedule saw our team arriving at the venue at 3:00am to ensure that everything was set and ready for rehearsals at 11:00am: a tight schedule for even our highly skilled and experienced engineers to convert an empty hotel room into a highly impressive conference environment. Amongst the speakers at the afternoon conference were Paul Williams (Managing Director, KIA Motors UK), Jean Charles Lievens (Vice President, Kia Motors Europe) and Yong-Hwan Kim (Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Kia Motors Corporation International Business Division). The conference ran to a tight script to enable accurate use of graphics, video footage, lighting and sound to complement each other and enhance the message that was being communicated from stage. The conference was directed by McCarty using a multi-channel comms system integrated with live program feed.

Sound

The sound design for the conference (and in fact the evening dinner) was the work of SFL Director, Tom Jeffery. The system needed to allow for both high quality coverage of the presenters and also full range sound for playback of AV material. The conference was led from a lectern on stage which was mic'd up using AKG 747 lectern mics. Radio microphones were used as a backup and for additional presenters. The speaker system consisted of d&b C6 speakers supplemented by d&b E3's to ensure even distribution across the whole venue. d&b C7 subs were placed behind the set to help create the atmosphere during video playback which made up a large proportion of the conference. A relay system was also installed in the Nine Kings Suite foyer for incidental music and announcements before and after the conference. All this was controlled from an Allen & Heath ML5000 sound desk.

Video

A Massive 70' wide, floor to ceiling screen made up the back wall of the set. Graphics, video footage and live camera relay were projected onto this surface using three Christie data projectors to create three separate "screens" along the backdrop. The largest of these was 16' wide, 16:9 format and used a Christie Road Runner LX100, 10,000 lumen data projector. All the projectors were installed with backups instantly ready to switch into action if anything was to go wrong. Three high quality Sony DXC-D50 cameras were installed feeding live images to the outer screens via a Panasonic WJ-MX70 component vision mixer. Logos and video footage were then carefully mixed in at precise points in the script to enhance what was being communicated by the presenter. This was run from a mixture of Betacam SP, DVCAM and DVD sources. The central screen provided most of the PC based speaker support material along with key Betacam SP footage for the introduction. This was run through an Analog Way seamless switcher to maintain the quality of the XGA PC output. Finally, an autocue system utilising two motorised conference stands was used to keep speakers on track. The AV system on the day was managed and engineered by Craig Lawrence with additional support from both PC operators and a VT operator.

Lighting

Lighting design was the work of Richard Horley. His brief was not only to accurately light the relevant presenters but to fill the 70' backdrop with creative lighting that could cover the whole screen where necessary but allow "holes" for the projectors to punch into at relevant points without light spilling onto the "screens". This was both a technical and creative challenge considering the relatively low height of the ceiling in the room and the limits on what could actually be flown weight wise. Horley used a combination of eight Martin Mac 250's and eight Martin Mac 300's along with nearly sixty generic lanterns, which were mainly Source Four profiles and pars, to achieve this. The lights were driven from an Avolites Pearl 2004 desk.

Staging & Starcloth

We also provided 80m of star cloth to dress the room and 10m x 5m of Revo stage which we carpeted in a high quality black carpet.

Evening Dinner

The end of the conference saw a handover of the system engineers ready for the evening event. The team had less than three hours to reset the room and rehearse for the evening, working around hotel staff also working to get tables ready for dinner. There was a brief introduction before dinner by Yong-Hwan Kim and then after dinner entertainment including Jack Dee and Bjorn Again amongst others. Carriages were called at 1:00am, nearly 24 hours after that day's work had started. The doors finally closed on our trucks at about 5:00am.

Technical Reset

Jeffery's sound design allowed for the team to add multiple stacks of C7 speakers (sub and top boxes) to the existing C6 / E3 system to provide for the band setup. Bjorn Again specified Shure Premier vocal radio mics and Shure wireless in-ear monitor systems which we happily provided on top of the array of mics and DI boxes already specified. An Allen & Heath ML3000 with ten d&b Max15 monitors made up the main monitoring system on the stage. Additional radio mics were also used for MC's and Jack Dee.

The central video projector was turned off to make "space" for the band set and then the camera system was used on the side screens to relay live footage of the entertainment.

Additional risers were brought in for drums and bass and to give some variation to the set. The evening dinner consisted of 50 tables, each of which was lit with a tightly focussed pin-spot. As well as achieving this within the tight turnaround, our team rigged Pani follow spots and refocused the stage lighting.