From glamorous red carpet photo opportunities to bold and eye-catching backdrops, media walls or photo walls are essential to any major sponsored event. A well designed media wall can become a great marketing tool – it lets you brand your event, enhance your event’s theme, encourage photo opportunities, and importantly promote the sponsors with ease. And it can do all this without detracting from your event and guests. Sounds simple right? Wrong. From too many logos to unflattering lighting and misplaced designs, Encore Event Technologies has been in the game long enough to know what a good and bad media wall looks like. With the potential for so many eyeballs on the finished photos, it’s essential to your event and your sponsors ROI that you get it right. Our team of event experts has put their heads together to devise a list of Do’s & Don’t’s for a winning media wall formula. From printing and set-up right through to design and execution on event day, from glamorous red carpet photo opportunities to bold and eye-catching backdrops, media walls or photo walls are essential to any major sponsored event. A well designed media wall can become a great marketing tool it lets you brand your event, enhance your event’s theme, encourage photo opportunities, and importantly promote the sponsors with ease. And it can do all this without detracting from your event and guests. Sounds simple right? Wrong.
From too many logos to unflattering lighting and misplaced designs, Encore Event Technologies has been in the game long enough to know what a good and bad media wall looks like. With the potential for so many eyeballs on the finished photos, it’s essential to your event and your sponsors ROI that you get it right. The DO’s Stick to the basics and keep your media wall simple Media walls should be designed to create a great first impression, but there’s no need for them to steal the show from your awards night, gala dinner or branded event.
The key purpose of any media backdrop or photo wall is to brand your event and provide exposure to your event’s sponsors. Avoid over-complicating your media wall’s design with too many logos or repetitions, and steer clear of busy visuals or distracting graphics. Less is definitely more! At its most basic design, a solid white background with fewer than 4 brand / sponsor logos repeated is usually best for a media wall. Pictured: A simple media wall design with few logos repeated is best.
Use media backdrops to put the spotlight on your brand and sponsors
When you’re printing brand logos onto your media wall, double-check you’re providing the correct file size and format for your media wall’s dimensions. JPEGs aren’t always the best solution, and the higher file size resolution, the better.
Be sure to check that yours and your sponsor’s logos are current too, it only takes an email or phone call. If you’re using this to draw attention to your brands, make sure you get it right. Location, location, location! Be sure to install the media wall either at the entrance or in a spot that receives a lot of foot traffic to ensure you capture everyone as they enter, or have a spare minute. Photo walls or media backdrops work well with a red carpet and bollards to direct your audience where to go. Your media backdrop can also be a great centerpiece to signal the entrance of your gala dinner or awards night. Position your media backdrop carefully If you’re not using an internally lit Event Backdrop, make sure there’s adequate light in addition to the photographer’s flash. Your media wall’s life will extend much longer than the event itself through photography – so make it count! If your media wall is being positioned against a wall, be sure to consider proper backing. It’s important that every feature of your event is installed correctly and has all the safety enhancements and fixture needed. If your media wall is self-standing, such as an Event Backdrop, don’t forget to leave sand bags on the floor for safety and stability. Pictured: A styled media wall created using fleur panels with truss uplights along the bottom with additional soft white light stands.
Go the extra mile for your event with a styled media wall for your gala dinner or awards night
If you’re looking for a media wall that leaves a lasting impression, enhance your theming with a styled media wall. Consider using textural elements such as fake grass, vertical gardens, corrugated iron for an industrial / outback look or fleur screens. If you’re heading down this route be sure to liaise with your audio visual company to devise an alternate solution, such as lighting, to display your brand logos. Pictured: An Event Backdrop fully covered in fake plants to enhance the ‘Vanity Fair’ theme of the gala dinner.
Get prop happy! If it suits the purpose of your event, such as a gala dinner or awards night, try adding some fun props too. This can help camera-shy people get in character and makes for a unique photo op. People will also be more likely to share photos on social media if they are in character, which amplifies your brand’s exposure online. Pictured: A ‘Hogwarts’ themed media / photo wall area complete with styled props.
Make your media backdrop social media friendly If you’re looking to maximise the reach of your event and engagement in the room, try using an event social media wall like Event Feed, which pulls all public social posts using your event hashtag and displays them live on screen after moderation. It’s a great way to get people engaged, start conversation and encourage photo taking and social uploading, extending the longevity of your event and brand messaging.
Get the most out of your media wall / photo wall and use a cameraman who has the technology to post straight to Instagram. THE DONT’s Avoid unflattering lighting
Event lighting is often just as important as your media wall. Don’t project blue light onto your media wall as it’s very unflattering and can distort faces in photos. We recommend using a soft white light instead – it’s the safe option and clearly captures the talent. It’s also a good idea to avoid using down lights, as they cast unflattering shadows over people’s faces. Consider using truss uplights along the bottom of your media wall, which casts a nice light on your event’s logos making them stand out. For best lighting results, we recommend using Event Backdrop – a digitally printed backdrop available in a range of sizes and can be internally lit, which makes for maximum impact on your branding. Pictured: A themed Event Backdrop with internal lighting making it the perfect solution for a branded media wall.
Limit unwanted photobombs with careful design consideration Consider the placement of any printed people, animal or objects onto your photo walls too as these can turn up in unexpected places when looking at the pictures, and often make for embarrassing (or hilarious) photobombs. You wouldn’t want this happening to the company CEO. Don’t leave your media wall until the last minute If it’s being printed, provide your supplier with the multimedia files at least 4 weeks before the event so you can see the mock up, approve a print test, and go through print and delivery with enough time to spare for changes in between. Be prepared for the unexpected Your media wall may also be set up in a different spot to what you planned, so consider possible power points, lighting, styling and anything else you may need for an alternate location. This may mean it needs to be installed at a different time, so ensure the set up is included in your run sheet. Any reputable AV company should be prepared for instances like this, but it’s always safe to have the ‘what if’ conversation to make sure all bases are covered. Pictured: A simple media wall design on pull-up banners with purple velvet draping. Partner with experienced events specialists you can count on
Looking for further ideas for your media wall or how to style your next awards night or gala dinner? Encore Event Technologies are audio visual production and events experts. Get in touch with us by calling 1800 209 099 or by sending an event enquiry to explore how we can take your event further. … Read More
How to create event lighting that communicates, inspires and delights
Mar 18 2018
It goes without saying that lighting is a crucial element of most events.
Whether it’s on a grand scale, like the projections we see at Sydney’s Vivid
festival, or a smaller-scale event with lighting illuminations in a foyer, it’s an artful
practice – and when done well, can really take your event to the next level. Light can immediately change the space it’s used in. An everyday location
can be transformed into an attention-grabbing canvas that helps deliver
your message. As a medium, light can be affordable and flexible enough to
use for all events. Lighting equipment can be as simple as battery
driven, wirelessly controlled fixtures that project the colour of your brand, or
as complex as the incredibly powerful computer-controlled projectors that
map video onto any conceivable surface, making it look 3D. Lighting design starts with you
When we encounter something that surprises us, we’re instantly engaged – and we react. We might react by discussing what we saw with the nearest person, taking pictures to share on social media, and asking questions. Imagine what that can mean for your customers, staff, friends or family? Evoking such a reaction in an audience is a great emotional experience for your event. Colours, shapes, symbols, movement, images and video are all tools that can be used to help you do just that. Effective lighting can be the simplest A technically simple lighting activation can be as straightforward as illuminating a space or building in a single or multiple colours. And it can still make an impact, or tell a story. Our Tasmanian team has been involved in many indoor and outdoor activations of this kind, including lighting the exterior of government buildings yellow for Road Safety Awareness Week (pictured top left), and performance venues in red to reflect the theme and spirit of the Dark Mofo winter arts festival (pictured middle left). To pay our respect in the wake of the Paris Attacks, our Canberra team worked with the Australian Government to illuminate Australia's Parliament House in red, white and blue, to reflect the French flag (pictured bottom left).
How do you illuminate buildings?
Using the Tasmanian Road Safety Awareness Week as an example of lighting buildings, we used nine high-powered 500watt HUI Cyclonic flood light with a yellow gel cover to illuminate Launceston Town Hall. Physically, they’re long rectangular bars, which sit on the ground and project up. These usually contain many light sources, such as dozens of high-powered LEDs. Did you know...These specialised lighting fixtures for
outdoor events or architectural lighting are
weatherproofed, and are given an
industry standard IP (International
Protection) rating that defines the
conditions they can safely operate
in. An IP rating of IP65 is the most
common for safe outdoor use,
where the ‘6’ means the fixture is
completely protected, and ‘5’ means
it’s so well protected from water that
water jets can be projected at it with
no damage. We can program outdoor building
illuminations on an electrical timer
to turn on and off as needed, saving
costs on technical staff as they don’t
need to be there. For ‘one-night-only’
events, a lot of the smaller fixtures
we use are battery powered and can
be controlled wirelessly, meaning
we avoid time consuming and tricky
cable runs. If illuminations are set to
run over multiple dates, we’ll discuss
a number of technical matters with
venue and lighting staff – and these
include safe access to and provision
of adequate power, security for
fixtures when there’s no staff present,
and safe public access in and around
the fixture’s location.
Putting your brand in the spotlight: Gobos
The next tool in a creative lighting
designer’s kit is the Gobo. The name is
basically short for ‘Goes Between’ or
‘Goes Before Optics’, and it’s essentially
any object that is placed in a lighting
fixture between the light source and its
optical path to change the output you
see in a projection. Gobos are great for communicating your brand or event message in an eye-catching way. Depending on their design they can also be used to help theme an event. What you need to know about Gobos The first Gobos were actually just perforated pieces of metal that technicians would use to create ‘break up’ or dappled light effects. These days, after a century of evolution, Gobos are now mostly made as glass discs. They generally come in lights with a few interesting textures – but importantly, they can be custom made for specific jobs. Personalised Gobos tend to be the most popular, since it can be used to project logos, images, or text. Custom made Gobos are quite affordable, which means an organisation can get great value from having their logo, message or related images etched on them to use at multiple events. We find that the most common way people use a Gobo is to project their logo. There are many ways to do this, whether it’s to stay static on walls or objects, move across a surface in a repeating pattern, or to blow up to a huge proportion on stage. Gobos can be used in a wide range of lighting fixtures, from tiny portable Gobo projectors that can project a static image, right up to extremely powerful moving head fixtures that can be used to animate, change colours and use multiple Gobos on the fly. How to use a gobo for your event: Gobos go big for Adelaide Football Club
As the official audio visual partner to the Adelaide Football Club, Staging Connections has helped them create highly impactful match-day experiences utilising cutting-edge AV in a creative way. As the ultimate call-to-arms, we projected the Adelaide Crows’ logo and their
tagline ‘We Fly As One’, across iconic Adelaide buildings, the Adelaide Oval and it's surrounding footpath and even trees.
We took up several positions in and around Adelaide Oval. The lighting team got to work assembling a combination of extremely bright Clay Paky Mythos, Martin MAC Viper and Martin MAC Quantum Profile LED source moving head fixtures. The iconic facade of the Adelaide
Festival Centre was transformed by a
giant Adelaide Crows logo, projected
from over 400-metres away by the
Clay Paky Mythos. We also had
permission from the neighbouring
InterContinental Hotel to use their
building as a projection site.
For the 2016 Toyota AFL Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous Round in May, the Club wanted to celebrate by providing a unique and special pre-game segment using projections of current Indigenous players onto the roof of the Adelaide Oval grandstands. In what was a first for the Adelaide Football Club, the stadium lights were switched off before the game which allowed the player projections to shine whilst a Welcome to Country and other entertainment celebrated the Indigenous Round.
Using gobo lighting projection was the simplest and safest way to ensure a great outcome but also working in with the logistics on ground prior to an important AFL match. Each light was protected from the weather in inflatable domes on individual trolleys to ensure a speedy exit prior to kick off.
The full-colour images of the players projected onto the Oval’s grandstand
roofs were made possible by a newer
Gobo manufacturing technique that
uses patented ‘thin film’ technology.
This means any photographic image
can be transferred onto the glass,
and any lighting fixture that can take
a custom Gobo and produce white
light can project a full colour image.
Until recently, this sort of full colour
effect was only possible with video
projectors, which are more costly to
deploy and operate. Did you know...Outdoor activations of this scale and
brightness require multiple control
positions with lighting desks and
operators, coordination with property
owners, and custom creation of media,
as well as the basic issues of security,
weatherproofing, power and access. It’s
not just a matter of pointing lights in the
right direction and hoping for the best -
specialist knowledge and consultation
is especially important when using
high-powered lighting fixtures outside.
As an example of the level of detail and
planning that went into this project, the
Crows activation used a ‘Bat Signal’-
like logo projection onto the cityscape
and into the air. To do this, we needed
approval from CASA (Civil Aviation
Safety Authority) to make sure that light
wouldn’t affect any flights. Now, that’s a big scale lighting project. Lighting projections as an artform: Projection mapping
If you have a creative vision for your
event that goes beyond colour and static
image, your lighting activation will move
into the intricate world of projection
mapping. We’re all familiar with it,
again thanks to Sydney’s Vivid and
other international festivals, as well as
countless viral videos and larger budget
events. Any kind of video can be created and
projected onto any surface. It could be
as simple as a screen, or as complex
as a moving vehicle. There are no limits
to what is possible creatively with
projection mapping. The only limits you
have are time, budget, and practical
considerations like rigging and power
access. We can provide full-service projection
mapping – from creative consultation,
to content creation, right through to
delivery. We had the chance to show
this off at the Amway Taiwan Leadership Gala Dinner in Sydney’s
newest (and largest) event space, The
Cutaway at Barangaroo Headland Park.
The Cutaway is named for the vast
sandstone wall that flanks the enormous
underground space, standing over three
stories tall. Amway chose the venue
specifically because of this feature, and
wanted to project video onto as much of
it as possible.
Using creative lighting for a gala dinner: Amway Taiwan Staging Connections’ in-house multimedia team created all of the content for the projections, matching the visuals to the themes of the live entertainment. Australian Aboriginal art and iconic Australian themes such as desert and beach, the red of the earth, and the white of the surf were all incorporated into spectacular video that covered 53 horizontal and 13 vertical metres of the sandstone. We used ten 26K Barco projectors to cover the wall, coordinated by Dataton’s Watchout software to create one connected image. And 18 more projectors helped cover the opposite concrete wall, with an additional two at each end of the venue, to completely immerse the venue in video. 3D Projection mapping for a product launch
The Staging Connections Melbourne team embarked on a path to take members of the audience on a journey from the alien planet to our own, through digital mediums, projection, pyrotechnics, actors and lighting.
This event required the collaboration between the client's 3D animation content with our 3D projection design, 3D mapping and reform. The design was precisely plotted in 3D software and 11 projectors were driven by 14 Watchout PCs onto a set space that canvassed a 22m-wide screen, full-size caravan model and floor space surrounding the area. Together with the 3D animated projection map and surround sound, time code generated cues for both stunt actors and pyrotechnics completed a theatrical experience. Event Profile: 3D Projection Mapping from Staging Connections on Vimeo.
Lighting that moves: Kinetic lighting
Event lighting doesn't always have to be fixed. Our Melbourne team developed a unique moving lighting installation for the 2015 Million Dollar Lunch fundraising event. It is one of the most star-studded charity events in the Australian calendar and each year the Children's Cancer Foundation look to make it bigger and better. To fit in with the overarching theme of kaleidoscope illuminated glowing spheres were flown off several trusses through the Palladium Ballroom and positioned in an arrangement near the entrance that boasted colour, vibrance and lent itself to the ideologies of a kaleidoscope. This piece was used to change the colour scheme and add drama to the event.
The glowing Yo-Yo LED balls moved on a vertical axis via motorised controllers programmed via our primary control system from our GrandMA desk to align the internal LED’s with a sequencing colour changing that created a kinetic chandelier piece unlike anything else. The movement of each LED sphere was converted from “Movement in Metres” to DMX values and sent back to the GrandMA which allowed for isolated control of speed and direction and where it was then merged with the colours being triggered from the GrandMA and aligned with the onscreen vision content. Watch the Million Dollar Lunch Event Video below. Use creative lighting for your event
Any live event in any venue, indoor or
outdoor, can inspire, delight and inform
your audience through the well-thought
out and creative application of light.
Get in touch with us by calling 1800 209 099 or by sending an event enquiry to explore how we can take your event further with spectacular lighting and projection that
works with your budget and message.
The possibilities are illuminating. ... Read More