Spyders are turning up worldwide as Avon Products, Inc. celebrates its 125th anniversary with the yearlong Avon Believe world tour. Vista Spyder video processors are supporting AV presentations at most of the stops on the 16-city tour staged by the world's largest direct seller and global beauty leader.
Thousands of Avon representatives are participating in the tour that celebrates the company's heritage and its mission to empower women. At each stop, celebrities make guest appearances and grants are presented to local organizations dedicated to supporting domestic violence victims.
"The Avon Believe world tour is an opportunity for Avon CEO Andrea Jung to speak and to celebrate Avon's birthday with representatives from around the world," said Mark O. Yokota, production manager/video engineer, Non-Square Pixel, Inc. "They wanted a cohesive look across the tour with the branding and presentations similar from stop to stop except for local content and language. Avon invited me to help provide that cohesive look as the tour video designer and I am working with local video vendors to deliver what Avon wants.
"Twelve of Avon's 16 stops have used Spyders. Spyder is all over the place these days: Everyone knows what it is, what it does, and appreciates the elegance of wiring the systems based on a Spyder. I'm really impressed by the market penetration that Spyder has internationally."
Media Solutions based in Las Vegas, provided Spyder X20-1608 systems to stops in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. JSAV of Dallas, Texas provided Spyder 344, Spyder 204 and Spyder 240 processors for the Mexico City stop, and Black Out, based in Palm Beach, Florida furnished a Spyder X20-1608 in Buenos Aires. For the European leg of the tour, Spyder X20-1608's were used in Warsaw and Moscow while Fresh/Paul Cleaver supplied the same model in Birmingham and London. Magic Box Productions of Istanbul, Turkey supplied a Spyder X20-808 to the Istanbul stop with CT: Asia, of Shanghai supplying the Spyder X20-1608 to the Shanghai show.
Each tour stop features an HD AV presentation with a center screen, outside screens, onstage plasma screens and two floor monitors. While the basic look of the show remains the same, each show is customized to available space and local gear availabilities.
Avon ships two DT Videolabs PlaybackPro systems and six graphics machines to each location to run keynote, and, along with the locally provided HD switched cameras, local graphics and a prompter constitutes the basic system inputs. "That's perfect for the Spyder X20," said Yokota. "We can use the router that's built into Spyder and don't need to provide a unit per mixable output."
Each show has four to five outputs, or destinations, depending on the city and language spoken. Ideally, the layout consists of:
* Destination 1: 1920 x 1080 DVI screens number 1, 3 and 5 in a 5-screen show or the center screen in a 3-screen show
* Destination 2: 1920 x 1080 DVI screens number 2 and 4 in a 5-screen show or the outside screens in a 3-screen show
* Destination 3: 1920 x 1080 DVI/HDMI onstage plasmas, 13-18 units depending on size of stage
* Destination 4: 1280 x 720 DVI/VGA floor monitors for local language graphics and prompting
* Destination 5: 1280 x 720 DVI/VGA floor monitors for English-language graphics and prompting in cities where the CEO speaks Spanish or Chinese
"The ability to have one piece of gear manage so many destinations has been huge," Yokota noted. "It also has a surprisingly small footprint since it doesn't need the front-end routers and two LCD monitors that others systems do.
"Stage manager/producer Joe Billone, vice president, global communications for Avon Products, Inc. is our client, and when he walks into a venue he has a series of cues we have already programmed for him. No matter what city or nuance, he calls the cue and it is always the same. Spyder makes that easy."
The line producer/technical lead for the tour is Laird B. Luebbers, director, global event production for Avon Products, Inc.
About Vista Systems
Vista Systems was acquired by Christie, a global leader in visual solutions for business, entertainment and industry, to create a comprehensive source for image processing and projection solutions. The acquisition combines the power and flexibility of Vista's video switchers and real-time windowing and composition products with the power, performance and reliability of award-winning Christie projection systems. Vista Systems' switchers have become the industry standard for live multiple-destination video and data mixed signal switching. For more information on Vista Systems, visit their website at www.vistasystems.net.