XL Events in control at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (photo © M & M Production Mgmt)
UK - XL Events recently travelled to Goodwood and supplied a range of video and audio equipment to Red Bull for their 'Gridsters' structure at the Festival of Speed. XL Events was commissioned to provide equipment for the project by Jaie Genadt, production manager at Red Bull's long-term events production partners, Innovision.

Over the four-day weekend at the Goodwood Estate, the Red Bull stand played host to their Gridsters contest, which saw 16 young finalists compete against each other for the title of the UK's best racing gamer.

The site also played host to appearances by F1 drivers, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, and Daniel Ricciardo, as well as a visit from moto trials rider Dougie Lampkin, who crashed the upstairs VIP area on his bike!

"Having worked with Innovision on a number of projects, we love the challenges which both they and Red Bull set us," states Robin Evans, XL Events' project manager.

Working with Genadt, Evans specified a full audio set-up including two arrays of L'Acoustics dV-DOSC hung either side of the main LED screen.

The Gridsters presenters used Shure radio mics to make announcements for the contest and to interview the team's F1 drivers during their appearances over the weekend. The crew managing the Gridsters contest were equipped with walkie-talkies enabling them to liaise with the control room in the area behind the stand.

For the external set-up two L'Acoustics Kiva speakers plus an SB15P sub-bass broadcast the Gridsters contest, mixed with music from the Red Bull DJ van, to the public area at the front of the stand, enabling the public to enjoy the events even when the structure had more visitors than could fit inside.

For the video element of the Gridsters contest, XL Events supplied all the screens around the structure including 70 panels of 4mm Hibino Chromatek LED which was used to display a 4-way split screen view of each of the Gridsters heats.

Behind the scenes, full contact control was managed by Barco's Encore image control system, which was fed outputs from four Sony PS3 and four Microsoft XBoxes via Image Pro HDs and a Grass Valley T2 Digital Disk Recorder. These images were supplied and manipulated to the multi-screen set-up in the structure.

(Jim Evans)


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