- WorldStage was tasked with providing an AV solution for the Made by Google press event taking place in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.
WorldStage supported Made by Google in San Francisco
The event unveiled the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones and other hardware initiatives developed by the tech giant. It was produced by Brooklyn-based MAS Events + Design with AV support from WorldStage.
Google chose the historic Ghirardelli Square chocolate factory as the venue to introduce the high-end smartphones and showcase a voice-controlled speaker system called Home as well as a virtual reality headset dubbed Daydream View. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other speakers briefed the press on the new products and presented demos against a backdrop of bold visuals.
WorldStage faced a challenge in the venue, which is typically not used as an event space. WorldStage employed a Unilumin U3 LED wall instead of projection to showcase the demos and provide speaker support and informational graphics.
"It was a small room, and projection wasn't feasible," said Josh Perlman, WorldStage senior account manager. "A rear-projection configuration would've used up valuable floor space and front projection would've been washed out by the high ambient light conditions. LED was a great technology choice due to the limited footprint and the bright, punchy video performance."
The choice of an LED wall was not without its challenges either.
"LEDs are very bright, but when there's almost no space between the screen and the presenter, as was the case in this room, interference known as moiré is created on camera," said Perlman. "And compressing a video signal for web streaming only makes the interference worse."
WorldStage drew upon its creative and technical knowledge and old-fashioned teamwork to resolve the problem.
"With a bit of hard work by our EIC Frank Musgrove, we were able to nail the camera look even with all the challenges of the LED wall," Perlman reports.
Video capture was accomplished with three Hitachi cameras, a pair of Panasonic robocams and a Ross switcher. The event's live web stream was watched by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
Russell Cowans, one of WorldStage's A1s, took on the audio aspects of the project, installing primarily d&b Y-Series speaker arrays.
"The issue with audio is always that you don't want to see it, but it has to sound good everywhere," continued Perlman. "Once again, the room had its challenges with tall ceilings, lots of glass and concrete plus an element of multi-point surround speakers. Russell stepped up to all the challenges."
