Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications (VAI), which announced a co-ownership agreement last summer, served as the turnkey audio, video, and lighting equipment vendor for Jack Morton Worldwide’s production of The SIBOS 2007 Convention, held last October at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
SIBOS is recognized as the worlds premiere financial-services event. The theme this year, “Gaining Momentum,” spot lit the issues challenging the industry now and in the future. Over 7,000 leading members of the financial services industry attended.
The London office of Jack Morton Worldwide, which has produced the annual conference in a different city every year for the last 11 years, was on this occasion supported by the networks’ Boston office. Scharff Weisberg was selected to supply audio, video and lighting equipment plus technical managers after having teamed with them on a high profile press event last year in NYC. “Once they knew SIBOS was going to be in the US this year, Jack Morton contacted us and we did the first site survey last December,” reports Scharff Weisberg’s senior account executive Walter Elzey.
With the plenary sessions and five breakout rooms, SIBOS was quite a large staging job. Working to briefs provided by the Jack Morton Worldwide creative and technical teams and their audio (Ron Lorman) and lighting (Chris Dallos) designers, Scharff Weisberg and VAI furnished all the audio, HD video, PowerPoint, and lighting gear for the event and supplied the labor to oversee the equipment’s installation and operation. The remit also included providing an LED wall and content transmission system with AV support for a breakfast meeting and large dinner & dance party. To ensure the success of the project SWI and VAI collaborated to support all the rooms.
Scharff Weisberg supplied a 16x9 i6 Barco LED wall that played programmed content in the entrance lobby. A messaging and distribution system designed and installed by John Ackerman took feeds from any room Scharff Weisberg supported and distributed it throughout the building. This provided a very flexible system allowing conference organizers to route transmission signals into and out of all main business sessions.
Scharff Weisberg provided a fully functional, eight-channel repeater walkie talkie system enabling clear communications between the event organizers and support teams throughout the entire conference center
Given the extensive nature of the project, Scharff Weisberg also acted as coordinator for four additional companies that were brought in to handle specific parts of the event. Specialized Audio-Visual, Scorpio Sound, Production Radio Rentals and XL Video all made notable contributions. Walter Elzey – Sr. Account Executive; Tony Rosello – PM SWI; Richard Bevan – PM VAI; David Lynd – Sr. Audio PM; John Ackerman – VP Systems; Dennis Menard – Lighting PM; Gareth Winterflood – Cable/Power Manager; Gerard McCarthy – Overall Lighting HOD; Harry Rosenblum – Overall Head LX; Dan Kirsch – HOD Party LX; Cliff Pospisil – Overall Audio RF Engineer; Jeff Svatek – Plenary/Party D&B technician; Brian Person – Sr. Audio Technician; Mike Alboher – Sr. Video Engineer; Juan Mateo – Projectionist; Kirk Garreans – Sr. Video Technician; Richard Stucker – Plenary TD; plus more than 50 additional technicians and support staff in NY, Tustin CA and Boston who made this event possible.
Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications, firms with extensive histories in the presentation and staging markets, recently announced a co-ownership agreement. While continuing to operate independently the two companies work together strategically to provide clients with state of the art audio, video and lighting equipment and services. With a strong presence on both coasts Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications are able to deliver a large array of cost-effective services on a national level. For more information, call 718-610-1660 or visit our website at www.swinyc.com. For more information on Video Applications, visit www.videoapps.com.