Dylan Batterham, AV1’s Melbourne based producer worked in tandem with Rotary and the L!VE event team out of the US to pull together the Rotary’s annual International Convention, a mammoth production that attracted over 14,000 attendees from around the world and ran over four days.
Hosted across the Rod Laver Arena and Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), AV1 beat out some stiff competition to win the tender for production of the Rod Laver Arena programme.
Dylan puts the win down to their thorough approach, “We were rethinking our proposal documents and this became a bit of a blueprint. I sat down with close friend and colleague Cory Hoyling from Shadow AV in Melbourne, and we did the floorplan on Vectorworks, sound design for the room, factored in the rigging, and went into quite a lot of detail in terms of exactly what fixtures we were going to use. We made sure that we were pitching the client something very accurate from the beginning.”
“The client was quite detailed in their specs but not so much on how to achieve it. They gave us a 3D mock-up of their concept, which was pretty similar to what they’d done the year before in Houston but they were completely open to our suggestions. They had part of the screen sitting on the stage which we could see causing a whole lot of issues. When we said everything needs to be hung we thought it was going to be a deal breaker, but they came back and said do what works. We focused on giving them the best bang for their buck and when they walked in they were really impressed, especially when we showed them what we could do with the lights.”
The AV1 team were in pre-production with the US for 6 weeks, “It wasn’t a huge amount of time but because we had done so much work on the proposal including 3D renders, once we got the job, we were pretty much ready. We ran it past the riggers and changed a few things up for them but otherwise we were good to go.”
The main challenge was the time difference, “We had limited time to chat and if we needed info during our workday, we would have to wait until the evening to get feedback. They had four guys in the States from L!ve and their own specialists overseeing the local providers, such as graphics and stage management. On the Rotary side of things, we worked with four people from different departments.”
Chair of the 2024 International Convention Committee Jennifer Scott speaks during the closing general session. Rotary International Convention. 31 May 2023. Melbourne, Australia
The Rod Laver Arena component of the event ran for two hours each morning and was also broadcast live into the MCEC. The opening ceremony included a parade with 191 countries’ flags, choreographed by the Rotary and Live team, and then followed by musical acts such as the Tenors, and keynote presentations from the Rotary team and high-profile guest speakers.
They had four days to pack in, “I estimated three days, but they wanted us to get done early so we had a technical checkday up our sleeve. On day one we got the rig and line arrays up and even got the majority of the lighting up.”
The venue was set up in concert mode with the 80 foot by 60 foot stage, “We carpeted the stage to get a very professional look, not your old rock ‘n roll one that gets rolled in and out. We used a full concert line array from Front of House Productions. They had just bought the KSL which was really good for that space.”
Day two saw the major LED build, “We had a huge number of panels including a curved screen out to the side which took some time to build. We also had a central screen on Kinesis motors that could fly in and out so the entertainers and speakers could walk on through the middle of the set. We had three teleprompter screens in front of the stage also on motors, so when people needed to use the autocue we could fly them in and out. If presenters only wanted one or wanted them lower we could automatically make the change.”
Opening general session. Rotary International Convention. 28 May 2023. Melbourne, Australia.
Inventory included 168 ProLights OmegaPix 26BE 2.6 mm panels for the 6 metre by 3.5 metre outer screens for IMAG; 140 ROE MC3 panels for the 8 metre by 4 metre reveal screen with 2.5 metre by 4.5 metre wings; and 228 ROE MC3 panels for the 14 metre curved backdrop wings. There were also an additional 56 ProLights OmegaPix 26BE 2.6 mm for the teleprompt and four Barco HDX W20 FLEX DLP projectors with 20 foot screens hung throughout for sight line.
AV1 provided all the 2.6mm LED panels and sourced the rest from CT Group. The 13 Kinesys motors were provided by Get Rigged and operated by Cameron Paterica.
Day 3 saw the lighting up and running, “We made some lighting changes on site and end up with over 100 lighting fixtures,” explains Dylan. “We used 32 ShowPro Pluto 250 Hybrid moving beams and 24x RGB LED Strobe fixtures for room looks. 16 Ayrton Eurus for were used for stage wash. 24 ShowPro Pluto 4000 washes, 8 ShowPro Pluto 2000 washes, and 10 GLP X4 Bar 20were used for on-stage looks.”
FOH Productions helped AV1 out with all the moving fixtures and also came to the party with the rest of the audio in addition to the KSL line array, “We used the V system for the side field and had the Y series doing the delays which was really only just colouring the top pockets. We had a heap of subs but ended up turning half of them off as the KSL was amazing on its own and there was not a lot of sub heavy content. We used our own Digico SE10 and SD11i desks, with the presenters making up the biggest part of channel count.”
Closing general session. Rotary International Convention. 31 May 2023. Melbourne, Australia
Even though the shows only lasted two hours each morning the days were long with lots of rehearsals, “The client was good with our rehearsal schedule but presenters’ schedules were very tight so we were on call for 12 to 14 hours a day and rehearsed in small segments when we could. We also had another studio used for filming vox pops and interviews, some used in the show, some for archive purposes. It definitely wasn’t your normal rock ‘n roll show. There were a lot of moving parts.”
AV1 dedicated 28 operators at any one time including autocue, cameras, video crew, stage hands, and hair and make-up, and there were also a few guys from the US, “We were very blessed to have a great team, everything went really smoothly, nothing was too much trouble.”
Highlights for Dylan included the flexibility provided by the Kinesis motors, being able to use his drone in the Rod Laver Arena to film their tech, and he was particularly impressed with his choice of media server and software, “Rather than Pandora’s Box we used a IOVersal media server and software developed by Sydney’s Paul Rodger at Light Engine. It is a great programme and absolutely nailed it for this job, pushing high quality video content out to three separate 4K outputs to run the whole show.”
Dylan was also pleased with their decision to use an onsite video editor, “We had someone top and tailing and editing as we went. The client appreciated that we had done all the work, fixed it up and it was ready to go by the end of the day.”
Dylan’s meticulous approach and AV1’s recent companywide investment in people and gear paid off, “This was the largest event to date where we have managed all the production. The nearest to this was a similar but slightly smaller event in Shanghai. We have been involved in bigger events before but usually it’s been the client relationship management or just one or two technical elements like the video system or the camera content, the media based side of things. This was a wonderful opportunity for us and with our recent investment in full time technicians across all skill levels and in gear and warehousing space, we are excited about what’s around the corner. I definitely have some ideas and am planting some seeds for next year’s Rotary International Convention in Singapore.”
Control
Main Hang
Sub
Foldback
Amplification
LED Screen – IMAG
LED Screen – Reveal
LED Screen – curved wing
Teleprompt
Lighting fixtures
Producer/Show Caller
Dylan Batterham
Technical Director/Stage Manager
Cory Hoyling
Speakers Prep
Trent Ward
Production Assistant/Showrunner
Theodore Papatheodorou
Head Rigger/Automation Tech
Cameron Paterica
Graphics Operator – Media Server
Paul Rodger
Vision Operator
Jay Wragge
Audio FOH Engineer
Paolo Tomassini
Lighting Operator
Michael Zagarn
Onsite Video Editor
Tim Holly
Plus cameras, hair & make-up & comms