Attracting over 5,500 attendees, Europe’s largest digital marketing conference, the Adobe Summit EMEA 2017 returned once again to ICC ExCeL London. Creative technical event production expert, Hawthorn was once again chosen by Taylor Bennett Partners to deliver the full technical design and production for the two-day event.  

Focused on the future of digital marketing, delegates from Europe, the Middle East and Africa gathered to soak up tips and insights from the Adobe Marketing Cloud and its partners. Led by Group Creative Director Pete Harding, Hawthorn was tasked to bring Taylor Bennett’s impressive vision to life, delivering the technical production for the main conference plenary, exhibition space, break-out rooms and the muchly-anticipated Summit Celebration.

The Community Pavilion

Ensuring that guests were immersed in the Adobe experience as soon as they stepped into the Summit, a six-metre long, five-metre wide and three-metre high tunnel constructed from 3.9mm LED panels guided attendees from Registration through to the Social Area.

Realising an idea by Russell Bennett, Partner at Taylor Bennett Partners, Hawthorn and 80-Six created an interactive LED ceiling that stretched throughout the Community Pavilion. Made up of 1017 panels of Roe MC7 LED, the team devised a custom rigging solution to allow the panels to be flown face down.

Designed to encourage live audience participation, delegates could choose the Adobe Stock content displayed on the ceiling via a custom web app that was displayed on a transparent OLED touch screen element located on the Adobe Stand. This web app triggered pre-configured content states, all controlled using two of Hawthorn’s new to stock d3 4x4 pro media servers, allowing the user to interact in absolute real-time with the content.

The Plenary

This year’s plenary stage played host to a number of big names, including actor Colin Firth CBE and former Premier League and England footballer Frank Lampard OBE. With major brands including T-Mobile, BMW Group and The Coca-Cola Company sharing how they are firmly at the forefront of digital marketing, Hawthorn created three vast screens to display the stunning video content. using three triple stacked Christie 4k30 Boxers. To mask any gaps between the screens, Hawthorn used concertina style 18mm LED.

Two two-projector stacks of Christie 4K boxers were also used for the rear relays along with three 20’ camera relay screens running from Christie 14Ks. In total, the plenary screens delivered a mammoth 534,000 lumens and 23,716,800 pixels.

Lighting in the Plenary was designed by renowned luminary designer Russell Grubiak who created a layered design that was sympathetic to the core graphics on screen whilst also providing a hidden layer of ‘rock-star shenanigans’ to reinforce the talent walk ups and opening video sequences. Clay Paky Sharpies were used to create a web above the screen and were choreographed with organic movement in sync with the graphics and unique to each section of the content. Four truss mounted Lycian Followspots were used to light the people and to keep the onstage ambient light levels down. An array of beauty lights hidden in the stage fascia helped facials. Viper Performance fixtures added some shaped lighting where fill or specials were needed and a barrage of Colour-force 72 batten and GLP Bar 20 brought some dazzle.

Audio in the Plenary was delivered using a d&b audiotechnik V Series line array. The system, which uses full ArrayProcessing, ensured that audio was delivered evenly across the space so that each member of the audience received the same experience, regardless of their position. Hawthorn also ran a full Dante redundant system over fiber, meaning they could run Dante Virtual Soundcard on the d3 servers. This resulted in a fully digital system from source to amps. Also, with the addition of the d&b DS10, they could run Dante to the d&b amps.

The Summit Celebration

Billed as the biggest and best Summit Celebration yet, the ‘Digital Landscape’ themed party featured entertainment from alt-pop band ‘Two Door Cinema Club’. Partygoers were enchanted by a futuristic landscape of digital trees, virtual reality experiences and a spectacular interactive projection mapped waterfall.

Hawthorn collaborated with renowned media technology studio BAJT to create the interactive waterfall installation and bring Taylor Bennett’s vision to life. Together they crafted a solution in which the waterfall was run with four 30K projectors fed directly from a two d3 4x4pro media servers using Notch integration, meaning every pixel was created in real-time. A BlackTrax system was then used to pick up movements of two sticks which each featured a concealed BlackTrax stringer emitter in the end. The stringers read the stick position and place effectors into Notch to create the effect of the water running around the stick, altering the path of waterfall in absolute real-time.

Russell Bennett, Partner at Taylor Bennett Partners, said: “The technical production for an event like the Adobe Summit is vast as it’s essentially an exhibition, a conference and a party, all rolled into one two-day event. We have a great relationship with the team at Hawthorn and they always rise to the technical challenge, enabling us to deliver solutions that entice, entertain and engage delegates.”

Pete Harding, Creative Director of Projects at Hawthorn, commented: ‘Taylor Bennett are renowned for delivering brand experiences that immerse consumers and captivate audiences. Russell and his team always present us with unique technical challenges, from creating an interactive virtual waterfall to building a fragmented LED ceiling. The Summit also gives us the opportunity to work collaboratively with other industry experts, combining our expertise to create something truly special. We’re always striving to push the boundaries, getting creative with technology to bring our client’s incredible vision to life.”