The new £6.5m British Music Experience (BME), which has taken up permanent residence at London’s O2 Arena, will provide a riveting addition to the capital’s tourist attraction landscape.
The high-tech, interactive music exhibition combines one of the most complex audio-visual systems ever designed — masterminded by integration specialists Sysco — with the most coveted music memorabilia of all time.
Working with Land Design Studio, BME’s exhibition designers, Sysco constructed a technical infrastructure that enables music lovers to trace historic moments and trends through the decades, learn about music’s influence on art, fashion and politics, develop their skills on guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and participate in a full public and educational programme with workshops, lectures, master-classes and concerts. As an interactive exhibition it enables them to scroll through years of music, video clips, stories and images of their favourite artists.
With over 100 artists featured in the exhibition, Sysco required an advanced mission-specific projection solution for use in the powerful Pre- and End Shows, the flexible, multipurpose central Core exhibition space and seven ‘edge zone’ satellite rooms located around the Core periphery — these represent the different musical idioms, spanning 50 years, in chronological order.
Sysco have long experience specifying Christie devices in major museum and visitor attraction projects, and know that their advanced featureset, compact form factor and durability would again provide a compelling reason for selecting the bulk of their requirements from the Christie catalogue.
The icing on the cake, according to Sysco’s Director of Engineering Glyn Hughes, was the back-up they knew they could depend on from the company’s UK Channel Sales Manager, Joe Graziano, and his technical team. “We are experienced enough to know what we needed to go where, but Christie are known to us, and having that extra bit of technical help was invaluable.”
However, he said that the projectors “had pretty much chosen themselves. We are using everything in native resolution — there is no scaling, and no blanking off as everything needed to be pixel matched.”
As a result, a total of 32 Christie devices have been deployed. Christie DS+305 compact, single chip DLP, SXGA+ projectors, fitted with fixed wide angle lens, create the 'Atlantic Crossing' exhibit that features in two of the edge zones, literally reflecting the cross-cultural influences of the US and the UK. Progressing through the five decades of pop, these zones also feature giant end-wall projections, each created by a pair of edge-butted Christie DS+305s run from an Apple Mac computer.
Sysco project manager, Chris Mothersdale, notes the projector rigging called for "a lot of experimentation with mounting techniques to provide rock-steady images" as the rigging truss is flown from one of The O2's structural masts, which magnify the tiny vibrations from tube trains passing deep beneath.
However, visitors’ first introduction to the acuity and power of Christie projection is on arrival in the Pre-Show theatre, where ‘virtual’ TV presenter Lauren Laverne narrates a five-minute introduction with the aid of a Christie DW5K HD projector, which outputs all its 5,000 ANSI lumens output in 16:9 aspect ratio onto a 4-metre screen. The smallest high-performance Xenon Lamp 3-chip DLP product on the market, this was precisely what was needed for the physical constraints of the room.
Elsewhere, sophisticated Christie DS+655 single-chip DLP projectors cut through the high ambient brightness from the circular ceiling of ‘Rock Galaxy’ while a DS+650 provides the high definition map of the UK that's at the heart of the 'Place In Time' exhibit in The Core, where visitors can check out the famous musical names and landmarks associated with thousands of locations across the UK. Three-inch plinth-mounted HAPP trackballs provide the interactive search element.
One of the advantages of Christie’s new generation single-chip projectors is the incorporation of BrilliantColor™ processing. This six-colour primary image processing technology from Texas Instruments, is a feature of Christie’s latest single-chip projectors, producing an expanded on-screen colour spectrum that delivers enhanced colour saturation.
However, the best is reserved until last. As they prepare to leave, visitors become immersed in a three-sided ‘experiential’ room that creates the sensation that they are performing on stage. No fewer than 13 compact DS+6K three-chip projectors — the smallest high-performance Xenon Lamp 3-chip DLP product on the market — combine to create this giant wrap-around stadium visual, projecting onto three semi-reflective screens using Dataton Watchout edge blending software, with three UXGA plasma displays blending behind to create a 3D layered effect. Moving head lighting is synchronised with video via DMX by the bespoke show control software, and the entire show can be triggered at the touch of a button by a member of staff via a Cue touch panel.
Fitted with fixed 1.1:1 fixed throw ratio, the Christie projectors had to be compressed onto a Litestructures truss. In order to deliver the panoramic wow factor precision-accuracy focusing was required — which proved no easy task until the truss height was lowered a fraction.
“Sysco did a fantastic job and minimal keystoning was required,” noted a delighted Joe Graziano, “They were a model partner — everything was very positive and nothing seemed to phase them. I was amazed at how they managed to get so many projectors so close together and the result of their efforts is outstanding — you have got to see it to believe it.”
This included the custom bracketry, designed by Glyn Hughes, allowing the projectors an element of tilt where necessary, while the devices themselves have been protected by filter kits (since haze dispersion forms a permanent feature of the End Show spectacular).
In addition to the edge-blended projections, the extravaganza includes interactive control surfaces, laminated touch screens and on-glass ‘holo’ displays.
The entire installation is DVI-based and fibre cable is used to send data over long distances. For conference use facility panels provide access for composite or VGA devices and large format Powerpoint presentations can be delivered via the Dataton Watchout processor.
The exhibition also owes its success to custom processes developed by a combination of software designers, Simple, ISO and Clay — while Watchout handled all the processing, image manipulation and soft-edge blend. Delivery was via MacPro or custom PC’s fitted with “souped-up graphics cards”.
Summing up, Glyn Hughes reinforced his gratitude for Christie’s support. “We knew how complicated it would be using the edge blend and fixed focal lens. To be able to have achieved what we have with fixed lens projectors, while having to fight for space with the lights, is something we are really proud of.”
Four years in the making, the BME, which occupies 22,000 square feet on the top floor of The O2 bubble, now looks set to become of one of Britain’s most compelling attractions.
Sysco director Hugo Roche summarises: “It has been an exciting project for us to work on, and once again has showed that the Sysco team has the experience and innovative abilities to deal with a complex exhibition within a demanding timetable, and in the sensitive context of a complex building.”