The challenge

As a presenting partner of the event, Novatech Creative Event Technology provided a range of supporting equipment and services. This included a large number of immersive lighting and video projection facilities that helped to bring the night-time performances to life.

To ensure Illuminate Adelaide was as vibrant and memorable as possible, Novatech needed to deploy a range of video projectors within the Adelaide central business district for the free night time light trail – City Lights. Adelaide’s city streets were transformed, with laneways and open spaces turned into a nocturnal playground of projections, imagination and light. The projectors were used to deliver visual content in new and interesting ways and needed to be able to withstand all weather conditions.

The solution

After evaluating a range of options, a decision was made in 2020 to deploy equipment from Barco.

“In late 2020, we made a large investment in Barco UDM and UDX video projectors, however the equipment was not used until 2021 due to COVID-related restrictions that forced event closures,” says Leko Novakovic, Managing Director at Novatech Creative Event Technology. “The inaugural Illuminate Adelaide event gave us the opportunity to put the equipment through its paces.”

Leko says because of the scale of the Illuminate event, Novatech was keen to have all projectors sourced from a single vendor. This would ensure operators could work on any installation and be familiar with the projector’s features and functions.

“The sites and material being projected varied dramatically, but the combination of the UDX and UDM units allowed us to design a solution to perfectly suit each building and application,” says Leko.

Sites equipped with Barco projectors included North Terrace (6 UDM units and 4 UDX units), the Institute Building (2 UDM units), the West Precinct (4 UDX units) and the Light Carpark (2 UDM units).

The results

With the units fully deployed for the duration of the event, Leko says both Novatech staff and event patrons were impressed with the results.

“The ability of the Barco projectors to deliver bright and very large video images added greatly to the success of the event. I would certainly recommend them to anyone staging similar large, outdoor events.”

Leko says the event sites around the CBD varied quite a lot and the flexibility of the projectors allowed the Novatech team to successfully cover entire buildings with video images.

“Their brightness allowed clear images to be seen even with the surrounding environmental lighting and other activations,” says Leko. “Image mapping was accurate and allowed the content to shine and be the main focus for patrons.”

Much of the success of the event can be put down to the close collaboration and pre-planning conducted by Illuminate Adelaide and Novatech over an eight-month period. Particular attention was given to the type of content to be projected and how the projectors could be seamlessly integrated together.

 “Thanks to our investment in Barco equipment, we now have the capability to support events of similar size in the future, both in Adelaide and around Australia,” says Leko. “I’m confident that Barco will be a valuable technology partner for many years to come.”