Ideal Home Show 2011
Organisers Media10 bought the Ideal Home Show in October 2009 and turned to their official AV contractor Aztec for creative and technical input. After an extremely successful inaugural show with rave reviews and record numbers, Media 10 decided to stick to the winning formula and once again selected Aztec as technical producer and official provider. The concept of the show remained essentially the same, with zones and feature areas made even bigger, better and grander. In the centre of the hall Aztec projected onto a huge 15mx11m cube which served as the focal point of the exhibition, providing information, entertainment and a stunning visual experience to the visitors. It was hung above the Olympic-size pool transformed into a luxurious marina, with a floating café directly underneath the cube. Aztec Digital camera and video production crews filmed activities in each of the zones and projected live and edited footage within a couple of hours consisting of celebrity interviews, daily schedules and sponsorship videos directly onto the cube via eight high-powered projectors. A powerful sound system was hidden inside the cube, and provided six reflectors for the captivating café waterfall.
Ideal Home Show is one of Aztec’s largest show in terms of equipment - as official supplier, we provided audiovisual equipment for most of the zones and feature areas including Celebrity Chef, Catwalk, How To Theatre, House of the Future, Show Homes Village and Dulux feature area. The biggest of these was the glamorous Catwalk where we provided a large PA and catwalk style lighting complete with a smoke machine. We also rigged a camera on the truss above the piste, delivering a live feed from fashion shows onto our Christie MicroTiles™ screens embedded into catwalk side walls. A technician was present for all 12 fashion shows a day, controlling the equipment, screening the live feeds and PowerPoint presentations on the MicroTiles™, and providing background music via iPad. We succeeded in making the area look like a high quality fashion show, with a regularly packed theatre and great audience feedback.
We provided laptops, iPod Touches and digital cameras for the innovative and interactive Dulux “Let’s Colour” feature area. Dulux showcased its new iPhone app which allowed visitors to create their own colour schemes or simply match any scanned colour to the corresponding one in the Dulux colour palette. The Ideal Celebrity Chef, one of the most popular areas last year, was upscaled significantly to meet audience demands. Aztec installed a booming PA and four large screens on the big truss above the live kitchen theatre; our cameraman was on-site for 8 shows a day, providing a live camera feed to an ever full audience area. The “Home Gadgets” zone showed tomorrow’s technology today, and we provided a CCTV system, screens, PA, lighting and laptops. Our technician worked very closely with the presenter, improvising and adding to the script in order to create the illusion of technology that doesn’t yet exist!
We also provided screens and laptops for Show Homes Village and Bloggers Lounge. In the How To theatre we set up screens, a PA and a camera/cameraman for close-up shots.
Aztec's Account Director and Project Manager of the show Leo Speck commented: “Our second year at Ideal Home Show went without a hitch - we were able to learn from last year’s experiences and successfully take the show to the next level.”
“I’m particularly proud of the way we overcame huge technical challenges, not just in AV but also in logistical terms, managing and coordinating the activity. We had over 15 people working on the show and using almost half a million pounds worth of state-of-the-art equipment.
Another challenge was to keep the content interesting and fresh over 17 days, but our creative arm Aztec Digital Media did a superb job and I think it’s safe to say the cube played a pivotal part in the success of the show.
And as it was a very long show I was a bit concerned as to whether my team would suffer from fatigue – but it was such a good show that everyone stayed enthusiastic till the very end!”
The 103rd edition of the show spanned 17 days and saw record numbers of visitors and exhibitor; with 250,000 people flocking to see 600 exhibitors, it was without a doubt one of the most impressive shows in recent years.
Media 10 have breathed life back into what was a struggling brand, and we are proud to have played a part. As a result of outstanding collaboration, Aztec has been appointed official supplier for Media 10’s brand new Ideal Home Show Scotland and Ideal Home Show Christmas, coming up later in 2011.