TEDxSydney

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TEDxSydney

By Cat Strom.

TEDxSydney is the leading platform for the propagation of Australian ideas, creativity and innovation to the rest of the world.

Over 5,000 people gathered at the ICC Sydney on Friday 15 June 2018 to experience this year’s flagship TEDxSydney event. Innovative Production Services has been a proud technical partner of the event since 2014. Their journey began with TEDx at the Sydney Opera House where they began looking after just the vision component. Now Innovative manage every technical element of the event, from the complex lighting, audio and video systems, to floorplans of seating.

TEDx became a possibility for Innovative once they gained their Barco Encore system, with Managing Director Jeremy Koch stating that this single piece of gear changed the company and the path they would head along for the foreseeable future. In 2014 TEDx was simply a 13.4m rear-project, blended screen with four Barco HDX 20k projectors double stacked).

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Now it’s a 48m multifaceted continuous screen with ten 20k HDX projectors punching a total of 10,368,000 pixels with 200,000 lumens of brightness. The screen extended well past the extremities of the entire stage area at the ICC and was visually overwhelming.

Photo by Jean-Jacques Halans

At the heart of the vision system was a Barco e2 screen management system. Between all the outputs for the screen along with monitors on stage, broadcast feeds and utility feeds BOH, Innovative came close to using all 12 outputs. All signal was run via 3G-SDI either over copper or fiber.

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The event featured screens everywhere; besides the spectacular main screen, there were two small LCD screens on stage for notes and slides. There was an additional feed for an eleventh HDX projector that was used for a performance. Numerous BOH monitors were all fed with the ‘TX Feed’ from the broadcast truck.

On the input side of things, it was just as busy. Laying down the base looks and all the super-wide video rolls was a d3 system. Eight MacBook Pros delivered all the presentations along with speaker notes, speaker timers and any ‘on the fly’ videos that got handed to Innovative.

Even at this level sometimes there were still last-minute requests and changes.

Innovative also had the IMAG input from their own camera switcher running into e2. There was plenty of camera action on TEDx with 12 cameras around the site all running back to the NEP HD broadcast truck in the dock of the ICC Theatre.

Innovative took splits off four of these broadcast cameras for their IMAG mix. The IMAG was mixed on its own so that they could make sure the broadcast shot is never the same as the shot on screen. Every camera was also recorded on its own so that the entire event is archived and can also be remixed at a later date.

The vision system action of TEDx Sydney does not stop in the main space. ‘The Hub’ is where you go to find your tribe, a space specifically designed to incite conversation on common ground. So besides the place for lunch, there were many activities and activations here. Innovative had a large double-sided LED screen flown in the middle of the space showing the live stream.

This was their new ROE Black Onyx 2.8mm LED screen, which looked stunning. One of the main activations in ‘The Hub’ was the St George stage ; a mini presentation stage that was constantly packed during the day. Live crosses to the main stage, mini TEDx Talks and business idea pitches were a few of the activities held there.

Lead photo: Catherine McElhone

This article first appeared in CX Magazine August 2018 – print and online. CX Magazine is Australia and New Zealand’s only publication dedicated to entertainment technology news and issues. Read all editions for free or search our archive www.cxnetwork.com.au

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