An international team from show and event technical production specialists More To Show delivered a bold, ambitious, star-studded spectacular event at the iconic Sixth Street Bridge in Los Angeles … to launch the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé for global PR and communications agency, OSK.
Working closely with OSK and London-based creative specialist CONSUL and their client Mercedes’ creative departments, More To Show, led by technical design director and founder Jordi Vandekerkhof, combined the forces and talents of innovative minds and technical experts from its Belgium HQ and Los Angeles operations to present smart and cool solutions for audio, lighting, video, pyro, staging and rigging that realized OSK’s and Mercedes’ visions.
The result transformed the raw beauty of this famous urban industrial landmark into an adrenaline fueled ‘Autobahn experience’ for the evening, a dynamic space that perfectly showcased the power, precision, safety and sustainability of the cars.
Autobahn Experience
The basic design concept was already in place from OSK and CONSUL and Mercedes themselves, so More To Show’s mission was to transform the Sixth Street location into a vibrant event environment – that seriously ripped up some asphalt – for the launch!
The Bridge (also known as 6th Street Viaduct), originally built in 1932 and replaced with a new structure opened in 2022, is a well-known local landmark that has become legendary through appearing in numerous films, television shows, music videos and video games.
The event site was divided into five main zones: A grandstand that straddled the road creating a tunnel through which cars drove at high-speed for the demos – passing under a massive LED ‘Autobahn’ sign as they emerged; the road / track lane itself; a presentation area from where Mercedes’ style and technical refinement was highlighted; plus, a festival-style food and refreshment truck area for mingling and networking.
As a final complete surprise for guests, the production also needed a temporary stage to support California rockers Blink-182 who played an incendiary set to wrap the high-profile launch event for 600 VVIP invited guests and celebrities on May 19th.
The very large autobahn sign was the event’s defining and memorable visual signature, setting the tone for the event as it appeared to be floating in the air by magic.
Foresight
The More To Show team also designed and established a supporting site infrastructure that received around 230 trucks of production equipment and included multiple working event-run and backstage areas, including accommodating power generators, trailer parking, evacuation routes, etc.
Everything – including the event itself – had to be set up in a 48-hour build window, following months of intense logistics getting all the permissions in place, checking out all the weight loadings and certifications required, booking all the contractors and planning a seamless event that was as fast paced as the cars and ingenious in every way.
On site, during the intense build and technical periods, up to 350 technical crew had to be simultaneously co-ordinated, which took management, structuring transparency and constant, clear interdepartmental communication.
Complexity
There is nothing that Jordi loves more than taking on a complex technical challenge and producing the seemingly impossible, and he commented:
“Eighteen months ago, we set up an LA office to help facilitate our international work, and thanks to this great synergy, knowledge and imagination exchange, plus the geography, we leveraged the time differences so our EU and US teams could work seamlessly and efficiently.”
Another recent More To Show development has been the founding of sister company Ombre to specialize in all areas of lighting, so their team led by lighting designer Luc De Climmer was also instrumental in delivering the production magic.
Jordi adds that it was “excellent” to work with OSK, CONSUL and Mercedes: “Their plans were highly ambitious, they knew what they wanted to achieve and we all worked collectively to make this happen to the best standards of excellence.”
Jordi applauded his entire team, the core of which included More To Show USA CEO Othello Van Veerdegem; Sophie Raes, key client project manager in the EU; LA-based senior technical director Benjamin Van Brande and technical director Alex Van Brande; EU-based technical directors Kilian Delcorte & Michel Plusquin and Joost Rombaut, technical designer in the EU.
Lighting
Lighting addressed a diversity of demands, for which Luc thought laterally.
Ombre was set up exactly for lighting multi-dimensional projects like this where it can evoke the viscerality of emotion, enhance the engagement of live spectacle and polish the look to operational perfection for camera as well as boost the adrenaline buzz of any action!
Over 1500 show lighting fixtures were used site wide, including leading brands like ARRI, Astera, Ayrton, Chauvet, Claypaky, Elation, GLP, Robe and more.
Most key production elements, including lighting, relied on being ground supported, resulting in the construction of six 16-meter-high technical towers each with a 3.5-meter diameter, which were strategically located either side of the road along the grandstand and the track.
Around 20 Ayrton lighting fixtures were rigged on each of the towers.
Elation and GLP spot and wash moving lights were used at ground level running along the length of the ‘autobahn’ track itself and on the floor under the grandstand, while Chauvet PXL Curves delineated the arches on the track space working with ARRI SkyPanels in the ceiling.
Eight Vari*lite VL3600s were used for manually follow spotting the cars as they whizzed along the road, running on a PRG GroundControl remote follow system.
Astera Titan Tubes and LunaBulbs were dotted around, adding ambience to the food stall area, and Astera QuikPunches illuminated the car presentation areas.
Pyro was supplied by Pyrotecnico FX and included 12 x Mega Mod single head liquid flame units and 5 Showven uFlamer II projectors, which were positioned on the bridge. On the autobahn sign were another 6 x uFlamer IIs and 8 x Le Maitre Salamander Quad Pro flame units, with 96 flame canisters, helping ramp up the excitement.
For Blink-182’s set, three trusses on an automation system descended from behind the autobahn sign which was suspended on a custom-designed ground support system devised by PRG. They were loaded with moving lights and strobes which had remained fully concealed up to this point to preserve the reveal! Additional floor lighting was swiftly moved onto the stage manually and some lighting from the nearest two towers was re-deployed to cover the stage.
Mood lighting covering the event areas included multi-layered patterns and gobo texturing with projections inspired by the tunnel wall designs.
As the show cars departed through the grandstand and headed down the autobahn, multiple beams of light swept forward onto the track, while others elevated to form a dramatic ‘spire of light’ in the sky. Simultaneously, the GLP JDC1s illuminated the cars from the sides with powerful steady sheets of white light, all flawlessly timed!
Apart from creating awesome live and camera looks, this ramped up the excitement as the cars roared down the track, demonstrating their speed and dexterity.
Event lighting was controlled via 2 x grandMA3 full-size consoles – with another full-size in the pre-viz studio, plus a grandMA3 light used as a mobile tech desk during the build and focus. Blink-182 brought their own operator.
Pre-viz was completed in two locations rather than More To Show’s LA office. Ombre pre-programmed the lighting using Depence in Belgium, then Luc moved to a pre-viz suite on the site.
All lighting equipment was supplied by PRG’s Los Angeles shop.
The technical towers, autobahn sign gantry and grandstand were designed and supplied by structural engineering specialists Accurate Staging. PRG then integrated all their technical systems into these elements.
Video
The centerpiece and signature of the whole production, defining the event’s look and mission statements, was the 15 meters wide by 5 meters high ‘autobahn screen’, which was constructed from ROE Visual Vanish V4ST product, driven by Brompton Tessera processors.
It was installed approximately 8 meters above ground level on a custom ground support system, and the cars whizzed underneath as they exited the tunnel and tore down the track.
The content displayed was created by the client, and it reinforced key Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé performance messaging as well as recreating the distinctive visual ambience of Germany’s famous motorways.
For the launch presentation, the screen was also fully utilized, showing bespoke motion graphics, cinematic brand content and some synchronized show visuals.
After the official reveal and car track demonstrations, the screen transitioned into an eye-catching backdrop for Blink-182’s content, and the three trusses which had been hidden behind it until that point, were flown in to fill the gap upstage. This setup remained in place for the after-show DJ / VJ.
Jo Pauly of Visual Solutions worked as More To Show’s head of video for this project, finessing the vast task of co-ordinating all video-related production aspects, ensuring smooth integration between media playback, live cameras and show cueing and working alongside the Mercedes creative team.
The LED system design, engineering, rigging and on-site infrastructure was also delivered by PRG Los Angeles.
The playback system comprised disguise VX4 media servers supplied by By-Lex GmbH, programmed for native pixel-to-pixel playback of all the show media in a full 10-bit workflow.
A Barco E2 image processor managed all the live camera feeds, providing ultra-low-latency processing and unified switching between IMAG and playback content. This allowed the live video, directed by Mark Achterberg, to be dovetailed into the show and perfectly synched with the car presentation and vehicle reveals.
The camera package came from ComSat Media GmbH (Germany), with live camera feeds from 7 x Sony UHD cameras – in fixed and mobile locations around various parts of the site – together with two drones and three POV cameras.
Car cams were used to beam real-time footage of the vehicles traversing the tunnel and moving along the bridge, complete with an EVS system to provide instant replays during the show and presentation segments.
Audio
Getting the audio spot on was another exacting element of this event needing technical and imaginative diligence and attention to detail in a very flexible production design.
The sound department had to deal with spoken word for the presentation, sound effects – as noted above, the car is electric BUT has some special audiological features evoking the spirit of engine power – and Blink-182’s music performance.
Peter Philips of MONO was the event sound designer, and he worked closely with Douglas Plander, technical product manager for audio at PRG, who designed a substantial Meyer PA system.
Anthony Narciso dealt with the spatial rendering and programmed the TiMax system.
Speaker arrays – a combination of Meyer Sound LEO, LYON, LEOPARD and 1100-LFC subs with X40 and UPJ fills – were hung from the six technical towers, focused to cover the different zones with maximum quality audio.
The main PA system comprised left and right LEO arrays flown either side of the autobahn sign with two delay hangs of LEOPARD positioned on the sloping part of the grandstand.
There was also plenty of ground stacked PA, including LFE (low-frequency effects) sub arrays underneath the grandstand for delivering all-encompassing cinematic audio during the big reveal.
For truly immersive sound related to the car movement down the track, four additional rear-firing LEOPARD speaker arrays were rigged to the grandstand structure, with another ground-stacked array positioned 50 meters further down the bridge. These offered guests an authentic aural / kinetic impression as the cars roared out the tunnel and zoomed along the track.
A TiMax SoundHub was utilized to route audio to the correct speaker arrays at the designated times for the ultimate reproduction, a precision process using sound recorded during rehearsal drives. This was fed into the TiMax, which calculated the correct positioning and movement across the speaker arrays in real-time during the show.
TiMax’s inbuilt audio playback engine and extensive snapshot control was a huge advantage in enabling and fine-tuning this, together with some creative wrangling by Anthony!
Another experiential audio conundrum was that the car is electric, but simulated sounds, including gear shifts, replicate the characteristics of a real V8 engine – a careful balance of smooth power, torque and aggression. These are played inside the car and externally via specialized exterior speakers to mimic the feel of traditional performance vehicles.
This in-car audio needed to be mixed into the event PA and spatialized for the audience in the grandstand as the cars sped underneath them, which involved several meetings between More To Show’s audio team and Mercedes-AMG engineers.
The client specifically wanted the drivers to be able to ‘rev’ the cars and engage in random burnouts, so prerecording was not an option!
The audio team tapped into the car’s onboard sound system to access the real-time generated sounds, which were beamed via RF to multiple antennas connected via the extensive site-wide fiber network which included the full length of the track. From there, they were integrated and mixed into the PA system outputs.
As these brand-new cars needed to stay hidden for as long as possible, they only arrived on site the day of the event, so this very impressive feat of audiological nerdery was achieved with just a single test run!
All sound was mixed via a DiGiCo SD12 console.
Blink-182 rocked up with their own touring control and monitor system and connected to the event’s racks-and-stacks.
Teamwork
For Jordi, the most enjoyable aspects of this highly successful event were accepting the initial challenge, then working with an exceptionally talented and passionate team of individuals and companies all collaborating to make it happen smoothly and seamlessly.
“It was truly special and a great privilege to be trusted in presenting an international media event of this stature and scale for one of the best, most recognized and innovative car brands worldwide,” he stated, adding that it perfectly illustrates how the “spirit, creativity and values of international business event collaboration and the dynamics of more global co-operation are reshaping the industry now and for the future.”
Links to related videos:
https://www.dropbox.com/t/qwEaX5iuKwecWC9Y
Photos by Lauren Kim with additional images courtesy of Mercedes-Benz AG