For the 18th consecutive year, Encore Event Technologies (formerly Staging Connections) provided audio and visual services for the Santos Tour Down Under; an action-packed nine day outdoor event featuring world-class cycling; and combined with styled gala dinners and street parties. Casts of thousands make the pilgrimage every year to revel in the atmosphere the Adelaide event brings. It's a fantastic Australian event to be part of and Encore are proud to provide all the audio visual equipment for yet another successful year. Client: Events South Australia Event: Santos Tour Down Under 2016 Venue: Adelaide and surrounds Event Date: 16 - 24th January Event Attendees: Approx. 780, 000 Event Brief Encore's Adelaide events team were briefed to provide and operate crystal-clear sound and vision equipment for all start and finish lines. This included prodding all the AV for the public address systems, commentary locations, and presentation stages. In addition, our AV technicians were charged with providing localised vision mixing for sponsorship recognition sent directly to multiple LED screens and TVs in the corporate areas lining the various circuits and routes. As part of the social events running alongside the main cycling race, audio and vision support was required for the team presentations, tour parade cars, as well as the opening night music concert by Jessica Mauboy and week long Tour Village in Victoria Square. As this is one of the biggest sporting events on the Australian calendar it receives huge media attention. It was our job to ensure the media conference rooms at the Hilton Adelaide had all the audio and vision equipment necessary to broadcast. Plus, Encore were called on to supply multiple outdoor LED screens to bring spectators all the action live from the race. Tailored Audio Visual Solution Experts in perfecting the audio and vision for this exciting outdoor event, the Adelaide events team supplied both large and small audio systems to accommodate basic commentary, music reinforcement, concert production, public address systems and information systems. Plus vision systems included TV commercials playback, sponsor recognition, image reinforcement, broadcast of highlights and live footage of the race all locally mixed with dedicated cameras for local interviews with the commentators. With a host of world-class technology at their fingertips, Encore installed a vast amount of audio, lighting, and vision equipment to ensure all aspects of the racing festival was captured. This included lighting for the opening night concert featuring popstar Jessica Mauboy as well as numerous LED screens - both small standalone screens and truck mounted screens - strategically positioned around the outdoor event to provide the live broadcast of the race, highlights, event sponsor recognition, a Twitter wall in the Village, television commercials and also as a stunning backdrop for the presentation stages at each race finish. To enhance the Adelaide event’s branding, the Encore events team designed a variety of animated holding slides and sponsor reels to support the official broadcast. Going the extra mile as part of our audio visual solution As a long term supplier and sponsor, Encore believes in the power of this event to draw thousands of tourists and business event delegates to Adelaide every year. In 2016, Encore supported Wednesday’s Stage 2 race as the naming sponsor for the leg from Unley to Stirling. The event ties into the beliefs of the Encore team, promoting cycling and professional athletes performing at their best whilst showcasing the sights, food and produce of South Australia. For Stage 2, the finish line at Stirling reached 35 degrees with 60% humidity, so the creative Encore team sourced over 3,000 Zooper Doopers and distributed them to the sweltering crowds! A custom made trophy was designed using a Horn Speaker from previous year’s events that was plated in aluminium and covered in custom decals and a naming plaque – its creativity and striking uniqueness certainly stood out at the presentation! For the Subaru Tour Parade, Encore revved up the crowd lining the race route 30 minutes prior to the peloton. They played the Tour Down Under theme song and various cycling sound effects building excitement with the energetic crowds that eagerly awaited the racing action. At each finish point, the team worked with the Presentation Event Manager, Big Fish Events to mix and broadcast “Breakaway TV” to the fans via large LED screens and street-lined PA system. The system pulled live footage from the host broadcaster and from custom television commercials for sponsors, as well as highlights and expert commentary from two dedicated commentators at each finish line. This ensured that the fans were well informed with live race updates as well as extensive sponsor recognition. What did the client say about the event and AV production services? "As a long term supplier of the Santos Tour Down Under we were thrilled to have Encore (then Staging Connections) solidify this relationship in 2016 by becoming the Stage 2 naming rights sponsor. "The 2016 event was one of the best yet and a highlight of this year was the opening concert featuring Jessica Mauboy. The stage set and graphics really set this event apart and what was most impressive was the change of the stage from a presentation to concert in under 5 minutes to ensure the crowd remains and is engaged. The concert is a great example of the service provided by Encore {sik Staging Connections} and why we are excited to continue to work with them both as a supplier and sponsor in coming years." Sally Heading, Event Manager, Events South Australia Encore's Adelaide Events Team Our local events team is based across eight key venues and is headed up by General Manager, Brien Keys. The team are 100% Adelaide-proud and their passion for the outdoors makes them key suppliers to some of the city’s main summer events, including the Adelaide Christmas Pageant, Clipsal 500 and year on year sponsorship and AV for the Adelaide Crows. If you're looking to host your next corporate event in Adelaide, than we're the experienced events team you can rely on. We proudly offer Australia's largest range of event services across audio, lighting, staging, vision and extending to styling, multimedia and digital event solutions like webcasting, live polling and event social media. Get in touch with us today or call 1800 209 099 to speak with one of our event experts. ... Read More

For their 2015 Open Day, the University of Tasmania wanted to invite the world. The purpose of the event was to showcase the breadth of study and courses available and to provide an engaging experience between prospective students, teachers and alumni. With this in mind, the Staging Connections team were engaged to deliver a webcast portal to allow students from across the globe to experience and interact with the University of Tasmania. Staging Connections Tasmania recently designed and built a live webcast capturing the presentations across two theatres concurrently. The live recordings were streamed onto a branded webcast skin which displayed the speaker and their presentation side-by-side. The aim of the webcast was to provide future students with an insightful look into each course, hearing from lecturer's and past alumni. The webcast also allowed viewers to leave comments and share the videos and have attracted approximately 1000 views per presentation. We've explained previously the monetary benefits of webcasting your event, and now the University of Tasmania have an online catalogue of course overviews available for prospective students around the globe to view and share with their friends. This is great content for the Uni which they can repurpose for future marketing and promotional campaigns. What did the client say? "Great service and communication through the whole process from planning to delivery and follow-up." Staging Connections currently offers the most customisable webcast platform in the Australian market. For more information on our webcasting services. View Webcast ... Read More

his week our blog is written by Luke Sullivan, Staging Connections Principal Advisor for Health, Safety and Environment. Luke’s mantra to the business is StageSafe, Every Show, Every Event and despite being a Vivienne Westwood clothes horse, he takes a very practical approach to safety. This week our blog is written by Luke Sullivan, Staging Connections Principal Advisor for Health, Safety and Environment. Luke’s mantra to the business is StageSafe, Every Show, Every Event and despite being a Vivienne Westwood clothes horse, he takes a very practical approach to safety. His latest blog discusses the challenges of getting people to use their imagination when assessing risk, while trying to ‘keep it real.’ All this in the post-alien abduction world of event management... Whatever happened to the phenomena of alien abductions? The 80s were rife with them. A Friday night would not go past without somebody getting snatched from their car, taken back to a mother ship and subjected to unspeakable experiments, only to wake up the next morning with a vague recollection of the ordeal. Where did the aliens go? It’s like they've lost interest in us. Whenever I coach people in risk assessment, I encourage a healthy imagination, especially when they are trying to determine potential risks in a work system. I then qualify this with “try to keep it real.” Well, be careful what you ask for. Sometimes this advice can backfire, especially when a group start the whole “what if” exercise and you somehow end up with Armageddon getting a mention in the risk assessment. In risk management, a vivid imagination is extremely useful. Engineers have to use theirs, such as it is, to identify potential risk. In highly networked or complex work systems such as production lines or power generation, engineers engage in what’s referred to as a fault-mode effects analysis (FMEA). This is taken one step further with an assessment of multiple simultaneous event (MSE) vulnerability, or that most dreaded of risk scenarios, the cascading events leading to a catastrophic failure (CELCF). While you’re trying to get your head around that, you need only look to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster as an example. The events unfolded like this. The earthquake struck northern Japan and the reactors shut down automatically. The emergency generators came online to control electronics and cooling systems. So far everything is working fine. However, when the tsunami rolled in minutes later and flooded the rooms containing the emergency generators contaminating them with seawater and shutting down the cooling system, the situation spiralled out of control. MSE becomes CELCF. So what can we in the events industry learn from such incidents? Plenty. The first sobering fact is that despite what you may think, CELCFs are not so rare. Three major stage collapses in North America and Europe in the past 12 months, all with eerily similar circumstances (flawed management systems and structural failure), demonstrate just how exposed promoters and event organisers are to catastrophe. Second, all catastrophic events in commerce and industry, even ones where nature appears to be the culprit, can be traced back to human error, oversight or negligence. Take Fukushima for example. The root cause of the meltdown was not the earthquake or even the tsunami. It was because key individuals chose to ignore a risk assessment urging the seawall to be raised from 5 to 10 meters a decade earlier. With the gift of hindsight, everyone’s an expert. Actually predicting catastrophe and risk managing it, however, is far more difficult. So I was somewhat surprised that our Perth & Adelaide teams (who from time to time deliver events in some of Australia’s most remote locations), did not identify the potential risk of alien abduction while travelling on one of those long lonely stretches of road. They clearly didn't grow up in rural Australia during the ‘80s. Try to keep it real. Author: Luke Sullivan, Staging Connections Principal Advisor for Health, Safety and Environment. ... Read More

We all know that it can be hard to hit targets in tough economic climates. FaceTime - the new marketing body for the events industry in the UK has a handy powerpoint slide which clearly outlines 8 reasons why live events changes minds. The information is globally applicable. Check it out at http://www.facetime.org.uk/files/facetime_power_point_slide.pdf ... Read More