MMM Drives Hyundai Conference

Live brand experience specialists MMM produced a stylish show for the 2005 Hyundai National Dealers Conference at Celtic Manor, Newport.

The event introduced some important corporate restructuring and the new UK manufacturing company, Hyundai Motors UK, which replaces the previous Hyundai importers, RAC PLC. It also showcased the new vehicles for 2006.

MMM’s brief was to ensure the day’s proceedings were highly motivational and energizing for the delegates.

The business conference lasted from 2pm to 5pm. It was followed by dinner and an evening of entertainment led by a male voice choir, and featuring comedian Dominic Holland.

MMM designed the set and the room and supplied all the necessary technical production and infrastructure including staging, sound, lighting and AV. They also supplied all personnel and services needed to run the event from delegate registration to logistics and artist booking. MMM also compiled all the PowerPoint content material, graphics and various video stings and play-ins. The graphic elements of the show were coordinated by Andy Darby.

MMM had only a lead-time of three weeks to plan the project, and onsite the MMM crew only gained access to the Caernarfon Suite at 3am on the show day. Two crews were employed, one to do the load-in and work the night shift, getting everything rigged, prepared and programmed, with a fresh crew taking over to run the show and do the take-down.

The set was designed to maintain the clean, modern lines of the Hyundai brand and its current marketing campaign. It consisted of a 90’ curved cyclorama hung from eight motors and four tubular steel ellipses filled with white gauze. Bespoke lecterns were designed to match the streamlined overall look, and the autocues were also constructed with white fascias. A 16’x9’ rear projection screen was installed for PowerPoint presentations and some VT play-in material.

The four new Hyundai vehicles–Getz, Amica, Tucson and Sonata–were displayed on stage, on jauntily rigged plinths of varying heights. These were, lit internally with color changing LED strips and externally with standard PARs and other stage lights.

The trussing, and some of the lighting–including over 30 moving lights and generic stage lighting including ETC Source Fours, PARs, etc.–was supplied by i-Vision. The moving lights included GLP YPOC 250s and 300s and some of the new Martin MAC 700s. MMM had custom gobos made for the moving fixtures, which were used to color and texture the cyc and set. Lighting was run from a Wholehog II console by LD Laurence Wilson.

The overstage truss was directly above the cars, and so two further trusses were rigged towards the back of the room, containing front and audience lighting fixtures, plus PA speakers.

On the AV front, MMM supplied two Sanyo XF45 10,000 lumen projectors, run double stacked to form one bright image and switched via an Analog Way Graphic Switcher. The sources were PowerPoint, DVD, and Beta, and a presentation by one of the Hyundai Motors Europe directors contained information so confidential that it was stored on and run from his USB key.

As soon as the conference session ended, delegates exited to the bar while the production crew worked frenetically to turn the room around from conference facility to dinner halls and live entertainment venue. The delegates re-entered the room as the choir burst into song in a moment of great excitement. Later, between main course and dessert, Dominic Smith took to the stage and enthralled the audience. The after show then continued in the bar, complete with karaoke machines.