Dodd Technologies, Inc., which is, itself, a full-service company — providing conceptualization, audio, video, staging, rigging, lighting and production solutions for live and corporate events — designed and produced the Hilton Summit’s general session. It featured multimedia presentations given by business executives and motivational speakers and also music from Kool & the Gang and the a cappella singing group, Naturally 7.
“Mark Dodd, the owner of Dodd Technologies, has had Hilton Hotels and different Hilton brands as a client for a long time,” says Scott Renick, Dodd’s graphics technologist, who served as the Dataton Watchout media programmer for the event. “When Hilton gets together here in the U.S. or around the world, they take Dodd Technologies with them.”
More than 2,000 attendees funneled into the Hilton Anatole’s doors, many of whom filtered into the hotel’s large Trinity II Ballroom to rally around the central theme of the conference: “One” (i.e. unity). The size and diversity of the crowd, and the space required to accommodate it — the conference center measures roughly 375 by 120 by 29 feet (WxDxH) — was a testament to Hilton’s commitment to its international staff, growing business and global reach.
“The hotels are all owned by different individuals and, essentially, it’s like franchising,” says Renick. “So this is an opportunity for Hilton Worldwide to bring together their brand execs to discuss how they can harness and leverage the power of each brand to grow, individually and together.”
Conceptualizing “ONE”
The “ONE” theme was conceived of by Hilton early in the production process, and it was quickly articulated, in considerable depth, to Dodd.
The concepts of unity and teamwork were common threads running throughout the conference. “[Hilton] passed along to us a 60 page PDF document describing the brand standards that we all read,” says Renick. “We used it as a guideline when we were designing the lighting, video and the actual layout of the room to make sure we continued the flavor of the brand.”
The notion of “One,” reflected in the Hilton summit presentations, also defined the team spirit demonstrated by Dodd Technologies’ production crew, who worked seamlessly on site while tapping the capabilities of 10 Watchout servers, hundreds of lighting fixtures, six large projection surfaces, innovative LED video designs, dual lighting consoles and a dozen projectors.
“Gear is gear, but then it gets down to the teamwork when you have to produce an event like this one,” says lighting designer Andy Meggenhofen. “Lighting and video are working very closely right now. That’s our overall objective: to try to blur the lines between video and lighting.”
Total Immersion
Through video imagery, lighting, audio and scenic elements, Dodd immersed the attendees in visual spectacle and color washes. “The idea was, ‘How do we engage the audience so that they are no longer disconnected from the stage, but a part of it?’” asks Renick. “‘How do you reach the person sitting in the back corner seat?’”
Reel Video Systems, LLC, a Dodd sister company, provided the overhead LED panels (or “fingers”) that flashed both static and animated imagery relevant to the over-arching message of the conference and each of the individual presentations given by speakers at the summit.
As such, video spanned nearly the entire depth of the ballroom. The setup included six projection screens — two screens each at stage right, stage left and center stage — with a custom section, or “chopped/broken surface” screen drawing visual attention to the center.
Each projection surface measured 12 feet tall by 21.5 feet wide. The set also included custom-built curved portions of LED video “fingers” that were connected to the upstage wall courtesy of another Dodd affiliate, Tyler Truss Systems.
“Coming back to the over-arching theme of ‘One,’ our idea was to focus everything on one point of view,” says Renick. “Everything was designed to focus [the audience’s attention] on the presenter at all times. In addition, all the imagery tied back to the stories the presenters told.
“Obviously these presentations are all scripted, and our media design team looked through [the scripts] and built media accordingly,’ Renick continues. “For instance, John Foley, a former Blue Angels pilot, spoke about his experience and how it could be applied by Hilton employees. He came in with his own presentation, but we took images of the Blue Angels, as well as static sky imagery, to enhance his speech.”
Mirroring the design of the LED panels, 14 “fingers” made from about 3,000 linear feet of Tyler box truss supported 200-plus Martin MAC Aura fixtures, which spread color throughout the Ballroom. In addition, 44 LED batten fixtures, along with three 100-by-24-foot-wide (WxH) white cyc, helped to texturize the space.
“The batten LED fixtures were hung from the same truss — facing towards the floor — as the cyc, with the upstage cord of the truss holding the cyc and the downstage cord holding the batten fixtures,” says Renick. “Each brand was designated a specific color — Hilton was blue, DoubleTree was deep red and Embassy Suites was green. We were able to change those at a moment’s notice to continue to carry the branding throughout the room.”
A dozen Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots, 10 Martin MAC III Performance Profiles, 18 MAC 2000 XB washes and eight Elation Platinum Wash ZFX Pro XL LED fixtures backlit the stage area as 18 Elation Platinum Beam 5R Pros were tapped for effects. “The Platinum Wash ZFX Pro XL [on the Ballroom stage deck] are great for eye candy,” says Renick. “We had a great stage lighting package, which was incredibly important when you’re shooting projection up behind the presenters.”
Dual Programming
Dodd’s production crew drove two MA Lighting grandMA lighting consoles — one full-sized, for main lighting control, with a second, a grandMA2 Light, used as backup (and for additional media programming). The networking ability of the grandMA2 console helped lighting designer Meggenhofen and programmer Jason Greene work with speed and efficiency. (The MA 3D computer software for previz also saved on programming time at the venue.) “Having two consoles allowed Andy and Jason to sit at two separate consoles and program different aspects of the show,” says Renick. “While Jason is working on media, Andy was on movers.”
Digital fiber network cables connected the MA2s with the MA NPUs (network processing units). “We employed fiber all the way to the back stage area, and at that point, we came out DMX copper wire for the fixtures,” says Renick. “Fiber backbone gives you low latency and really fast responses in the fixtures. Plus, you don’t have the line loss that you can [have] by sending data over copper. Also, the amount of data we can send down one fiber line — and then break out at the NPUs — far exceeds what you can send over copper. When we network all of these units together — the network processing units with the consoles — we have thousands of parameters all over. [Fiber] increases and expands your capability instantly.”
Show Control
The 10-server Dataton Watchout setup included a spare server (server #9) and one used for master control (server #10). Watchout operated the projectors beaming onto the six projection surfaces. “The projectors were roughly the same distance [from the stage], and none of them were particularly long throws, in order to preserve brightness and contrast ratio,” says Renick.
Watchout also controlled the LED wall in the lobby of the hotel — “simple playbacks from a Playback Pro computer,” notes Renick. In addition Watchout governed both the content and mapping details for the LED fingers along with the six double-stacked Christie HD10K-M Roadster projectors.
“We use Watchout as a tool,” says Renick. “We used it for playback, for media mapping, all the LED finger mapping, and the content that was beamed onto the ‘break up’ projection screen — all the blocking out of those gaps so that projection didn’t project through to the white cyc.
“We could control each projector and the projection surfaces, treating them as individual [surfaces] or as one big canvas,” Renick continues. “Then we used a Vista Spyder X20 unit as our video routing tool.
“Basically, we had a Watchout for the ‘wallpaper’ — that’s your nuts and bolts, your background graphics — then Spyder, which allowed us to overlay PowerPoint presentations, media playback files, live camera, I-MAG camera feeds, everything,” Renick continues.
Tech and Trust
With only two days allotted for setup, the conference’s over-arching theme of unity and teamwork resonated powerfully with the Dodd Technologies backstage crew.
“As Andy and Jason were building lighting looks, we were feeding them imagery,” says Renick, of the collaboration between those responsible for the lighting and video portions of the event’s visual design. “If we were using a certain color palette, they would build lighting around that. As media would become available, it would be flashed up on the screen and they would be able to build a look. Lighting has their media servers — they work with the MA VPU and Axon Media Server to take control of certain elements so they can program their lighting designs. The technology was invaluable, but it’s also about communication: ‘Naturally 7 is on stage, what media do we have that will work with this?’”
“The technology is allowing us to perform certain operations within a limited time frame,” says Meggenhofen. “Naturally 7 had a produced piece of media that had their lips moving in sync with the song they were singing on stage. To sync up the video with their live performance, we ended up using time code off the Avid console, front of house, which went to a Watchout server and then fed back out to us. The only problem was, halfway through the song [during rehearsals], Naturally 7 discovered that they had sent us the wrong arrangement. We had the first half of the song, but we didn’t have the second half. So we sat down, the video team and the lighting team, and tried to figure something out. Scott ended up building content, and we simply faded out at the moment that [the video] fell out of sync. That was a ‘first-aid’ fix, and the audience was none the wiser.”
Because Dodd has helped Hilton overcome so many AV challenges in the past (and undoubtedly will continue to do so in the future), a special bond exists between the hotel group and its production partner.
“Two years prior to the 2013 event, an outside keynote speaker hit about 75 percent of the points another executive wanted to make the next day in his presentation,” recalls Meggenhofen. “Scott and Jeremy created an immersive Watchout presentation for him on eight screens in the round.”
“We have [Hilton’s] trust and it’s been an earned process,” says Renick. “It’s something where, over the years, Dodd Technologies has delivered for them time after time at a very high level while gaining the trust of the executives in that organization. They’re a great team to work with and work for, and it’s a really good relationship.”
Hilton’s ONE Summit
Crew
Production Designer & Technical Director: Mark Dodd
Creative Director: Doug May
Director: Paul Jones
Lighting Designer: Andy Meggenhofen
Lighting Programmer: Jason Greene
Lighting Techs: Matthew Reifsteck, David Seitz, Derek Dechert
Technical Director: Michael “Slush” Mehringer
Video Engineer: Cory Hack
Projectionist: Michael Dodd
Graphics/Vista Spyder Programmer: Jeremy Fliss
Watchout Media Programmer: Scott Renick
LED Techs: Denny Relf (Lead), Taylor Bragg (Mapping), Justin Douglas
Audio Director: Garry Robbins
A2: Tim Franquest
Teleprompter: Donna Smoot
Carpenters: Jon Bond (Lead), David Dodd, Dan Vaughn
There were 50+ Dodd Technologies crew members in all
Gear
1 MA Lighting grandMA2
1 MA Lighting grandMA Light (backup)
204 Martin MAC Auras
44 LED batten fixtures
12 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots
18 Martin MAC 2000 XB Washes
10 Martin MAC III Performances
12 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes
12 Mole-Richardson Molefay 4 Lite
18 Elation Platinum Beam 5R Pro fixtures
8 Elation Platinum Wash ZFX XL LED moving head
12 Christie HD10K-M Roadster Projectors (Double Stacked)
5 Front projection surfaces (12’ x 21.5’)
1 “Chopped” custom projection surface (12’ x 21.5’)
1 Vista Spyder X20 video routing unit
10 Dataton Watchout servers
1 MA VPU media server
2 High End Systems Axon media servers
4 Sony HXC-100 broadcast quality 1080 HD cameras
1 Panasonic AV-HS410 1080 HD switcher
1 Sony BRC-H900 robotic camera
AJA Ki Pro digital record decks
2 Playback Pro hard disk playback towers
3 100’ wide x 24’ tall white cyc custom staging elements including stairs, white stage
70 Black drape panels (15’ x 30’)
2 Reel EFX DF-50 Diffusion hazers
3000 linear feet of Tyler Truss Systems Box Truss (12” & 20.5”)
The event was supported with 140 rigging points and nine 53’ semi trailers for production.
