Sierra Leone Installation – Venue Technical Management

 

AV Direct will be embarking on a trip to Sierra Leone this month, where we’ll be installing audio visual equipment at the Minister’s conference venue. We will be supplying trussing, motors, stage lighting and AV equipment for this installation project.

The planning of the project, managed by our technical director Neville Leslie, who has completed many projects and events around Africa, started with an idea for a smart trussing structure to be rigged above a stage in this conference venue. We designed and created a 3D technical drawing of the equipment in scale to the venue. The purpose of this AV installation was to provide a technical management system that allowed for lighting, projection, audio to be configured as practical as possible. The aim was also to allow for easy maintenance and expansion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The structure consisted of over 50m of trussing which we needed to have powder coated in black to suit the theme of the venue. The trussing also included adjustable corner blocks to create the shape as seen below. We used the new OV trussing range from TSG, now manufactured by Stage Audio Works here in South Africa. This quality truss is really reliable and as it’s produced locally, this kept costs to a minimum.

The truss would be rigged using 6 1ton Liftket MB-Type motors and Outboard DV 8 chain hoist controller.

This product, which is manufactured in Germany is highly rated, would be our first choice when purchasing motors for its quality engineering and safety.

 

Fixed to the trussing structure will be an array of static lighting fixtures. There are a host of Par64 and Par56 cans which are supplied from Italy and a selection of LDR Souno 20/40 Zoom Profile Spotlights.

These are powered using Zero 88 six channel lighting dimmers all of which are DMX controlled. Stage Plus socaplex cabling is used to send power from the control room to the structure. We also added a LDR Canto 1200 Followspot. The lighting dimmers would be controlled using the Avolites Titan Mobile lighting controller and we selected the Dell Inspiron One Touch PC for the interface. The Titan allows for expansion when adding more intelligent fixtures to the setup.

For the projection we used a large Grandview motorized screen with a viewing area of 4870mm x 3660mm. We will be projecting onto this screen with the NEC P501x projector. This projector will be controlled via Cat6 cable from the control room.

The audio which is supplied by Wild ‘n Marr, consists of a passive JBL VRX System powered by Crown amplification. The array has 3 clusters and will provide an overall excellent audio dispersion for the venue.

We hope to complete this project by early November and by that time will have more pictures of the setup to show you!