Our clients think of us as the support crew that ensure their events go without a hitch; just the way we like it, away from the spotlight. But when one of your clients wins an award for the event they organised, it is good to know we played a part in delivering something special.

Of course, it’s hard to strike the right balance between claiming too much of the glory and letting the award go unnoticed, especially for TechPro as perennial hiders of lights under bushels!

Hopefully we have waited sufficient time on this occasion and can only add our congratulations to our client, whilst explaining a little about our role.

Our client received their accolade at last year’s C&IT Awards. The award recognised their innovative festival-style event proved far more engaging than a traditional corporate day for their client, a global healthcare business.

Comfort zone challenged

From the outset the event was designed to be different; something that challenged the preconceptions of those attending.

An event that would inspire the company’s employees to step outside their comfort zone and feel differently about the day was planned meticulously, from concept to event breakdown.

The 700 delegates that descended on a large field on a country estate were confronted with large marquee structures, for staged presentations and events, with interactive workshops designed to teach them a variety of circus skills, including tightrope, fire and stilt walking, acrobatics and juggling. great food options and live entertainment featured throughout, running late into the evening.

Senior leaders from within the healthcare business were able to explain their vision of the future to a seated audience and through a variety of activities the delegates were able to experience the core values of the business.

Great support crew

Whilst innovative events in tents are great for delegates and win awards for those who imagine and plan them, they present a range technical challenges – rigging video, sound and lighting equipment from the inside structure of a tent is not recommended.

The interior of the main tepee was a particularly complex workspace, featuring 27 interlocking upright support columns. Our projects team devised an innovative hexagonal ground-supported and fully anchored truss design which elegantly avoided the internals of the tepee assembly.

This bespoke truss formed the central audio-visual focus for the event space, allowing our on-site technicians to rig 12x 75-inch monitors, 18x line-array loudspeakers and 16x stage-wash lamps from the same structure.

Our audio-visual technicians had a lot of oddly shaped structures to rig all the equipment into, which made it quite a complex event, even though it was not that large compared to many of the events we undertake for our clients.

TechPro also drew all the technical site-plans on our clients’ behalf. This included the full outdoor event site, access ways, campsites, fencing and other site-wide elements. Close coordination with our client during pre-production was vital to the success of the project.

The sound profile of every venue matters and canvas flapping in the breeze is one of the trickier ones for our sound technicians to cope with; but they did.

It was important to ensure our equipment allowed everyone to see and hear the presentations clearly, whilst not getting in the way – monitors on stage for the first few rows who hope to avoid cricked necks.

The audience surrounded the central stage area, which meant pushing our lighting trusses up to 4m and setting up relay screens around the venue, so everyone felt close to the action as it unfolded.

As ever, arriving on location with a large number of big black TechPro flight cases, of all shapes and sizes, ensures any venue shrinks in size and tents in a field is no exception.

The huge amount of kit we provided, connected and maintained on the day included monitors, speakers, lapel microphones for up to eight individuals, with hand mics for the Q&A session. Once it was all in place, there was just the usual thousands of metres of audio and video cable to connect it all together; avoiding trip hazards!

It never ceases to amaze, the military-style precision our team manages when rigging equipment, but that of course is down to the hours spent at our headquarters in Tamworth checking everything in advance and preparing it ever-so neatly – it really is worth the effort and saves hours on-site.

Trusted to deliver

The event was a huge success and the client’s feedback to the event organiser was undoubtedly an important part of the award entry that saw our client lift the trophy. Our client was quick to thank us for the work we did to ensure expectations were exceeded and that’s all we can ask for.

The award win was just the icing on the cake and we like to think in our own way, TechPro was a critical part of that success; but we’re more than happy to stay out of the spotlight and enhance our reputation as the go-to support crew.

Our team did a great job getting everything onto site and back off again afterwards without damage, delay or disaster – another flawless delivery from TechPro, the trusted partner to the live events industry.