Cheltenham’s Imperial Gardens became a cinematic hotspot of international sport, films and music over the summer as the town’s Big Screen Festival took place, utilising Production AV’s substantial stock of Desay M6 outdoor LED screen panels to make up the visual display.
Production AV’s Nathan Dunbar project managed the supply, delivery, build and operation of the screens. The main screen was made up of 18 panels of the modular Desay M6 outdoor LED screens, which the team fitted together to create the large-scale LED wall.
A host of content was shown to audiences enjoying the summer weather, including live BBC streams of the Tokyo Olympics and Channel 4’s Paralympics, BBC Proms as well as family films and local business advertising. The event was part of a drive by Cheltenham Borough Council to bring residents back into the centre of the town and drive shopping, entertainment and community initiatives as lockdown ended.
“We have a great relationship with Cheltenham Borough Council, supplying a range of events in the town including the Cheltenham Literature and Science Festivals, and this was one of the first post-lockdown events to be staged,” says Dunbar. “We worked closely with the event organisers to supply the right LED screens for all weathers and conditions, and our Desay M6 outdoor panels are built for great colour reproduction and brightness, and can withstand sunlight and adverse rain or wind and remain in play.”
Dunbar and his Production AV colleagues Darryl Mills and Olie Goulding rigged the Desay screens onto a Layher structure in Imperial Gardens for added strength and safety, foreseeing some of the wonders of the British summer. An operator from Production AV was on-site at all times during the six-week event to handle all of the content and ensure the feeds displayed properly, mixing in local commercial content with the BBC streams.
David Jackson from Marketing Cheltenham comments: “Our Big Screen in the Gardens event was a huge success and saw several thousand spectators coming into town for the films, music and live sport – and therefore played a big part of our recovery and reopening activity this summer. Despite a very short lead-in time, Production AV were able to deliver a quality technical solution and provided a high level of professional service throughout that made them very easy to work with.”