NEW YORK — Adele Live in New York City, a one-night-only show at Radio City Music Hall, aired on NBC Dec. 14, 2015. DWP Live provided a projection-mapping visual assist for the broadcast, which garnered more than 11 million viewers. DWP Live used an arsenal of gear on short order for mapped surfaces that included four ceiling arches, the proscenium and the stage of Radio City Music Hall.
More details from DWP Live (www.dwplive.com):
The arsenal of gear used by DWP Live for the event included 21 Barco HDFW30 projectors, six Barco HDXW20 projectors, two d3 4x4pro VFCequipped servers and one backup d3 4x4pro VFCequipped server.
The NBC special averaged a 3.0 rating among adults 1849, which is the highest rating among adults for a primetime concert special since the 2005 Eagles Farewell Tour.
“The event’s extremely short timeline and design installation made it a very challenging project — all the moving parts had to come together and look incredible in less than a day. I know that some in the industry said that it couldn’t be done, but our team of experts were well prepared to overcome this monumental challenge. It’s our people and their thoughtful preparation that made the difference,” said Danny Whetstone, president of DWP Live. “Adele’s performance gave me chills. We were grateful for the opportunity to work with NBC and support Adele’s stunning performance through the art of projection mapping.”
DWP Live fed all the content to the inhouse LED screen upstage, and also projected onto a 90foot-wide scrim in front of the LED for a really cool effect.
“Our media servers are equipped with the newly designed Video Format Conversion (VFC) output cards, each d3 box can output 16 HD feeds, which means that every single projector had its own video feed for this show. The VFC cards let us deliver large, multi-projector shows like this one with fewer machines and no downstream splitter devices, which reduces the cost and complexity of the setup,” said Ben Ryle, chief technology officer of DWP Live.
A 10time Grammy Awardwinning singer, Adele performed eight songs during the onehour television special, including four from her third studio album, 25, which she released in October 2015. The album sold 3.38 million copies in its first week of release, marking the best oneweek sales since Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991.
The show was hosted by Jimmy Fallon, directed by Beth McCarthy-Miller and executive produced by Lorne Michaels. Some of Hollywood’s top stars were in attendance, including Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Daniel Day Lewis and Jon Hamm.
