NEUMANN&MÜLLER VERANSTALTUNGSTECHNIK

The audience enjoyed the music from their balconies, at open windows and on a parking deck; they were sitting in the “royal box” so speak, as artistic director Markus Rindt put it. With all social distancing and hygiene rules being observed by both audience and orchestra, works by John Williams, Giovanni Gabrieli and Minxiong Li also rang out in addition to Lehmann-Horn’s premiere – a sensory concert experience that the people of Dresden could enjoy in their homes.

Both orchestra and technical planners were faced with challenges: the sound of the instruments was to ring out from the roofs of five different tower blocks at a height of around 17 metres as well as from a parking deck – whereby the distance between them was between 50 and 450 metres! This meant the some of the musicians had to start playing with a slight delay so that the sounds reached the audience in harmony all at the same time. The solution was a so-called “click track”, an idea developed jointly by Volker Greve, the members of the Dresdner Sinfoniker and Neumann&Müller. This gave each musician in the orchestra his or her cue, with each receiving their individual metronome on their headphones via wireless connection with delays of varying length. The musicians furthest away had no delay because the sound from their instruments reached the audience last, whereas the nearer instruments – the dagu drums on the parking deck for example – came in later.

On the day before the open-air concert, the headphone mixes were set together with the musicians and saved accordingly. We also designed and implemented an appropriate P.A. system to ensure a perfect auditory experience.

The unusual concert was a complete success and met with tremendous acclaim from audience and media alike. “Sky over Prohlis” was intended as a pioneering venture and as an example of how unusual sound experiences can reach a broad audience under pandemic conditions – thus making a stirring contribution to a new start for the future of music.

Before drawing up the concept, we advised the company managers extensively on whether and how an AGM could be realised in the form of a Digital Live Event in the existing facilities. The task we faced involved setting up an image/video control room for the signals and deploying a total of five cameras in the studio itself while complying with social distancing regulations.

We opted for three manned Triax units for views of the hall and two fixed cameras for augmented reality perspectives, which were also played live. This was because presentation of the content was to be visualised with live AR technology to support the company management’s report. This resulted in a restricted movement radius for the manned cameras in the studio. At the same time, fixed points had to be defined in the hall for the AR cameras and for preview displays based on the rendered live perspectives. The goal was to create a picture in the live stream in which the viewer and the speaker could see the three-dimensional AR content that accompanied the presentations given by the members of the BayWa managing board. Neumann&Müller digital media, Munich was responsible for the programming of the AR elements.

LED equipment only was used for the lighting, one reason being that it was also to minimise energy consumption and heat development in the studio.

A 350 m² booth was constructed for the streaming event on the company’s own premises in Esslingen, thus providing the setting for the presentations, each of which was broadcast live in two parallel 15-minute sessions. This worldwide stream – which could also be viewed in China and therefore presented a particularly complex challenge – was realised by Festo’s IT team together with Neumann&Müller’s partner “3Q” and the Chinese company Alibaba. The individual sessions were moderated by Festo employees in German, English, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. Afterwards, visitors could ask questions by means of a chat function.

The Digital Live Event was preceded by detailed planning; we were responsible for the control room, camera, audio and additional lighting as well as for the show flow, the video clips and the worldwide stream. This involved setting up two separate video control units to realise simultaneous streaming of two parallel transmissions throughout the whole day.

Four wireless cameras gave us sufficient flexibility to effectively capture the dynamic presentation, which sometimes incorporated the entire booth. Between the individual sessions, we implemented appropriate hygiene measures to ensure compliance with the rules aimed at containing the corona pandemic.

Close consultation with the client and between partners right from the planning stage guaranteed the smooth running of the Digital Live Event, which had been preceded by trial set-ups to ensure additional reliability. 17,000 visitors had registered for the Virtual Exhibition; 33,000 viewers followed the event live, accessing the trade fair documents provided for download 70,000 times.

Everything that happened on the stage could now be accessed by a large number of people via livestream. We also created and programmed an interactive website in the event’s corporate design. Wherever they happened to be, members of the audience could access the website and, with the aid of our come2interact application, actively participate in the goings-on and interact with other participants. The conference itself also benefited from the digital approach in that online users’ behaviour could be analysed straightaway and event content adapted accordingly.

A high-performance, secure data network – set up by our own server structures – ensured that the livestream was stable and that applications and the website ran without a hitch. The result was that, instead of the originally planned 400 guests at the venue, the organisers were able to reach an audience of 1,400. At the venue itself and in parallel to the live scenario, we also provided the client with content for its social media channels. The video and audio material recorded and post-processed by Neumann&Müller digital media can now be used for future purposes.

In order to create the right gaming atmosphere among the audience, the lighting and video were controlled automatically from within the game: for example, red lights flashed in the auditorium as soon as a bomb exploded, or a skull symbolised that a player had been eliminated.

Incidentally, we also support e-sports as a sustaining member of the eSport-Bund Deutschland, which was founded in 2017, because when professional sport meets entertainment, the event technology needs to be just as professional. And that is discipline in which we are truly outstanding.

Photos: Stephanie Lieske

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The sophisticated festival program was dubbed “01: The encounter” and consisted of 100 presentations on 15 stages including two “Keynote Lounges” and six “Themed Areas” – and all of that in four different languages. Our “Remote Simultaneous Interpreting” (RSI) system was deployed at the festival and was also the subject of a detailed workshop presentation. “Interpreting 4.0” represents a giant leap forward for congresses and conferences such as the BrandEx Festival, whereby interpreters are not bound to the actual venue itself. Their connection to the “spoken word” is the data line between their workplace, the venue and the speaker’s microphone, which runs via N&M’s interpreter hub. RSI helps event organizers to increase their flexibility as well as the scalability of their service regardless of the language or of the location, duration or size of the event.

Besides providing the technical services for simultaneous interpreting in four languages, we also ensured “silent sound” for the entire event area. We integrated 700 receivers into the network to enable attendees to follow their individually selected program item on their headsets in the language of their choice. Our camera equipment supplied the accompanying images to the monitors for the both attendees and interpreters from the video control room set up entirely by N&M. We realized “ultra low latency” video streaming via 256-bit-encoded “point-to-point” connections.

Before the “Best of Events” fair opened its doors at Dortmund’s Westfalenhallen the next day, the best projects in the sector received BrandEx awards – the worthy successors of the long-running FAMAB awards – and a good time was had by all at the subsequent after-show party.

Photos: Ronny Barthel for BrandEx-Festival

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The theatre management engaged Neumann&Müller to plan the replacement of all the technical equipment, which we did within the framework of “care4equipment” – our service package especially designed for permanent locations and (theater) venues. Besides identifying outdated systems and technical equipment in need of renewal, our inspection also revealed that the electrical installations did not meet the applicable standards and regulations. However, the tight schedule remained unchanged: the entire project, from planning to completion, had to be ready for its premiere in just eight weeks, and so we set about the detailed installation planning with subsequent implementation of the various systems in the two auditoria.

First, we installed a completely new electrical system, followed by audio, lighting and video equipment. Today the stages feature a 5.1 sound system and are lit by environmentally-friendly LED technology. The new video system enables 3D hologram projections and mapping with up to six projectors. We designed bespoke load-bearing systems for the curtains and lights for both stages in the historical building.

Our “care4equipment” services were deployed at the “Zimmertheater”, and we demonstrated that implementation from a single source has distinct benefits in terms of both budget and schedule while also being of major significance when it comes to preserving the fabric of the building.

Dieter and Peer Ripberger, who manage the “Zimmertheater”, were full of praise for the way the project was executed:

“The N&M team, led by Andreas Kammerer, turned the Tübingen “Zimmertheater” inside out: in the middle of the summer break, with an extremely short planning period and a crazy timeline. Following the complete overhaul of the electrical installations and event technology for our two stages – one of them in a historical arched cellar from the 16th century – our theater now has two auditoria fitted with safe, modern equipment. We can now realise contemporary aesthetics that correspond to the state of the art – while saving a lot of energy thanks to the complete changeover to LED. We received – and still receive – the best possible support at all times. Thank you very much to the entire team!”

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Attendees were able to position physical objects and integrate them into the interactive application on an 65’’ PAN-NET touch table featuring 4K resolution and Tangible Object Recognition (TOR). These markers symbolized Telekom tariffs, data contingents, additional options, etc. By turning and combining these markers in different ways, visitors to the exhibition were able to put together individual product packages.

The “Smart City Guide” programmed by our studio in Dresden provided an interactive overview of the exhibition stand, which included all of the exhibits and stations. The “Security Net” app was the interactive simulation of a hacker attack, which we showed on an OLED display, for example. A further app presented the interactive simulation of “Seamless Connectivity”, which enables smartphones to maintain a reliable connection to the internet.

In his capacity as leading programmer, Robert Schöne developed a content management system that allowed central control of all the exhibits on the entire Telekom stand. This CMS enabled a “content deep dive” to be performed on each exhibit, thus permitting live access to documents with variable contents, such as PDFs or PowerPoints. We realized this programming with VVVV, Watchout, C# and XML.

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