WorldStage provided audio, video, lighting and logistical support for the Milken Institute’s 2012 Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.
The annual Milken Institute Global Conference assembles some of the world’s most extraordinary people from business, finance, policy, education, health, energy and philanthropy to explore solutions to today’s most pressing challenges. Participants include top CEOs, senior foreign and U.S. government officials, academics, leading journalists and noted figures in the world’s capital markets. This year, speakers included former president Bill Clinton, Governor Jerry Brown, Michael Milken, Steve Forbes, George Lucas and T. Boone Pickens.
“The primary challenge of this event is the sheer quantity of small, large and medium-sized events taking place at the same time, each of which has its own requirements and all of which must be comprehensively documented,” said WorldStage VP of Production Services,
Richard Bevan. “While many of our projects provide exotic technical challenges, this project is a great opportunity for us to flex our project management muscle.”
With the hotel filled to capacity and breakout rooms, multiple ballrooms and outdoor pavilions to support over four days of a packed schedule, WorldStage employed a workforce in excess of 120 technicians. WorldStage provided a much larger complement of project management on site than normal with four PM’s, three EIC’s, an equipment manager and a labor coordinator on site at all times.
“As a client, the Milken Institute is very focused on providing the best presentation and documentation services for their attendees and this year that meant increasing use of HD video throughout.” Bevan continued, “Every session is recorded and this year we upgraded to a H.264 digital file system so that sessions could be uploaded to the Institute web-site immediately.”
In addition to the smaller spaces, WorldStage supported sessions in the large International Ballroom, which required five projection screens to display presentations, i-mag and sponsor messages. Sound and image from the International and the other ballrooms was available in the smaller rooms and pavilions to provide overflow coverage.
In all, twenty-six cameras were required, twelve of them HD. “To maximize space, we mounted a pair of robo cameras in each of the breakout rooms and ran wires to an adjacent room where the video operator recorded the presentations,” Bevan explained.
The tented pavilion lounge was outfitted with a large video screen for sponsors and overflow feeds, 65-inch plasmas running cable news feeds with closed captioning and ambient room lighting. WorldStage also filled the conference’s broadcast lighting requirements.
The Milken Foundation Creative Services Department, which produced the event, furnished all the computers for the Global Conference. Josh Lesser of Vision Matrix was the Producer of the event and Larry Lesser, the EVP of The Milken Family Foundation Creative Services Department, was the Executive Producer.
