LIGHT EVENT VERANSTALTUNGSTECHNIK GMBH STAGES IBM BUSINESSCONNECT 2015 IN COLOGNE

The IBM BusinessConnect 2015 show was held at the XPOST in Cologne on 20 October 2015 under the strapline “Seize the Moment – the future starts with you”. More than 900 business delegates attended keynote speeches, panel discussions and presentations, gleaning information on the subjects of digital enterprise, Industry 4.0, human resources, NewWaytoWork, mobile/social networks, analytics, cloud computing and security. Light Event Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH of Cologne was retained by the George P. Johnson GmbH agency as a general technical service provider.
Light Event erected 14 stages altogether and a speakers’ corner in the 4000 m² hall in the former Cologne post office building. Besides the main stage for the principal keynote address and for the speeches given by guest speakers like Jochen Schweizer and Karl-Heinz Land, the other stages were distributed in a themed arrangement throughout the hall and across into the integrated conference centre in the XPOST building. The design, projection, management and professional planning in this area were carried out by leading agency George P. Johnson GmbH which acts for IBM all over the world.
For the 12 x 6.5-metre backdrop with integrated screen measuring 11 x 3.3 metres on the main stage, Light Event used two Barco HDQ-2K40 projectors, each with an output of 40,000 ANSIlumens and soft edge blending for the projection of the images onto the enormous screen. The entire video processing was managed with the Ascender 48 multi-screen seamless switcher supplied by Analog Way. Sony HXC-100 camera production units were used for the video feed.
In addition to the projection screen on the main stage, Light Event installed seven NEC Multisync X981 UHD monitors and six Sharp PN-R903 monitors in the XPOST venue in order to screen the content of the speeches and presentations and general information for the delegates at IBM BusinessConnect 2015 in Full HD and UHD.
In order to light up the place, the professional event service provider decked the hall with 200 Studio PAR 575 HPL halogen lamps which were affixed to around 600 metres of trussing with 90 ChainMaster BGV D8+ motors. In terms of the PA system, Light Event insisted on the latest systems in the d&b Y and T ranges to relay the central themes on the agenda and the keynote speech by Jochen Schweizer. The idea was to allow the delegates themselves to decide which of the seven stages in the hall they wanted to tune into, therefore Light Event installed a sound system based on a Sennheiser tour guide system. The speeches were then transmitted via 52 radio links to a total of 1200 in-ear headphones which were issued to the delegates. So it was possible, for example, to switch between the various discourse topics.