International. The Fête des Vignerons, an event like no other, is held once every 20 years in a temporary stadium on the shores of Lake Geneva. The celebration, in which a large number of artists wearing elaborate costumes, as well as animals and vehicles are present, is held every day for a month to honor the winegrowers of the region, which stretches from Lavaux to Chablais in Switzerland.
Organized by the official Brotherhood of Winegrowers, the Confrérie des Vignerons, the show represents a year of the life of the vineyard through 21 action-packed scenes. This year's event also received a technological boost in the form of a gigantic LED floor from VISS Display, a subsidiary of Absen, provided by the rental company Alabama.
Breaking records
As two decades have passed since the last Fête was held, the technical team of 200 people had to make sure that the 2019 edition met all expectations, as well as demonstrate the best of the last 20 years in live event technology.
With this in mind, a temporary stadium with capacity for 20,000 people was built in the Swiss city of Vevey that had to accommodate more than 5500 volunteer artists and 900 singers and musicians from the area.
After the installation of the first technical elements in May 2019, the project evolved for budgetary reasons and also from a creative perspective to ensure that it was in line with the vision of the artistic director, Daniele Finzi Pasca, designer of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Turin and Sochi, as well as some Cirque du Soleil productions. To make it easier for the technical team to understand the key themes and narrative, workshops were held together with the event organizer, the Confrérie des Vignerons.
As day and night shows were requested, a more powerful visual solution was required than high-quality video projection, which motivated François Mottier to suggest the incorporation of an LED floor.
"I was already in contact with the French event specialist Alabama, so I asked them to recommend products to us," he said. "We pushed for LED because we wanted to use something different and we thought it was able to add a lot of visual power to the show. In addition, with its 800 square meters, it would become the largest LED floor ever implemented for an event."
With heavy vehicles such as tractors driven on the surface while cows, horses and carts, and goats roamed the stadium, it was critical that the 3132-panel LED floor was sturdy. A large number of tests were carried out in extreme conditions, such as with high temperatures, to ensure that the floor was sturdy and functioned properly in the sun before the team opted for the 4500 nits LF7 Pro LED floor panels from Absen subsidiary VISS Display, which weighed 66 tons with the frames.
The product was developed jointly with Alabama, which provided all video equipment for the stadium. In addition to covering virtually the entire floor area with outdoor LEDs, the company supplied 150 square meters of Absen AT5 Pro outdoor LED screens in the form of columns at the top of the four stages; offered a visual technical control system based on Barco's E2 system and several Smode media servers, and installed a camera system and return monitoring to ensure the show was displayed smoothly on all screens.
Managed by Dominique Lassarat, General Manager and Alabama Project Manager for the Fête des Vignerons, the product development process involved the creation of LED technology that ensured that images could be seen clearly even during performances in daylight and that in turn could offer controlled electricity consumption.
A large fan pushing the cold wind from the lake below the ground helped cool the surface by using tiny microparticles of water that evaporated to reduce heat. Additional fans were placed on the ground around the edge of the ground to control the fog used in production.
"The system was so efficient that even on the hottest day, when the LED floor temperature reached 75 degrees, we didn't have problems," said François Mottier. "I had only worked with LED floors on a smaller scale, so this was something really special. We built a slope on the edge to drain the water and designed a 20-meter-long LED platform that could be raised and lowered by a hydraulic system, to allow the entrance and exit of the stadium of the artists and the elements that appeared in the show. "
The use of LEDs also allowed the production team to show Finzi Pasca and the choreographers markers that indicated where the artists should be placed and where objects such as trampoline mats should be placed.
To ensure that the floor operated in the most demanding conditions (direct sunlight), tests were conducted in an outdoor theatre with a 3000 nits version of the VISS product.
With a floor made up of 13 million LEDs, backed by another 5v million LEDs on the edge, the team could guarantee an impressive spectacle, even during the day. When used as an effect in combination with lighting, the floor could also illuminate artists.
Around the edge of the stadium, 200 panels of the Altair AT5 series (5.5 mm roving ultralight LEDs and 4500 nits of Absen) displayed content that complemented or reflected the images of the ground or the artists' close-ups. The product was selected in part because of its common cathode technology, which requires little power, offers low heat dissipation and high refresh rates, and reduces pixel failures. Alabama worked alongside Absen once again during the R&D phases to make sure it was sturdy and lightweight, and helped develop a later frame to speed up rigging.
In the control tower, the Smode media server offered advanced control and easy adjustment of the brightness of the contents of the border panels and the LED floor during the day and night shows.
