Big Video for a Big Harley-Davidson Party.

United Visual provides Video and Lighting services for
The Harley-Davidson 100 Year Celebration.

How does a company like Harley Davidson culminate a yearlong 100-year birthday celebration?  With a colossal birthday party in their hometown with 200,000 of their closest friends.  Renowned London producer Andrew Empson was given the task of putting together a stage and stage production fitting the occasion.  Who better for Andrew to contact than Milwaukee's leading Audio Visual staging and production company, United Visual?  Andrew's first concept for adding video projection to the Harley-Davidson 100 year party main stage was thirty to fifty 5000 ANSI lumen LCD projectors projecting Harley-Davidson banners and various video images on multiple screens placed in succession off the main party stage.  As Andrew worked with United Visual on the stage concept it quickly evolved into two huge front projection screens on either side of the main stage projecting a Harley-Davidson rider tribute video from the Harley family.  United Visual had the solution to bring Andrew's vision to life and after receiving various demonstrations from national competitors; Andrew awarded United Visual the project.  Working closely with Andrew, United Visual's project manager James Harris started to design the huge video projection system needed to create the vivid full motion video images on the two 38' x 96' projection screens.

How did he do it? James needed a large venue video projector that was bright enough to project a 103-foot diagonal video image with a throw distance of 180 feet.  James decided on the Christie Digital Roadie X10 DLP projector with a blinding output of 10,000 ANSI Lumens.  James knew just one of these incredibly bright projectors per screen wouldn't do the job so he had two custom cages built that would accommodate two triple stacked projectors per screen, producing a video system comprised of twelve total Christie X10 projectors and a total output of 120,000 ANSI Lumens.  The total video image was created by edge blending each of the two triple stacked projectors.  Video was delivered to the projector stacks via an Analog Way Graphic Switcher II System with edge blending technology.  The projector stacks where placed on scaffolding 36 feet off the ground and 180 feet from each screen.  To counteract the image keystoning created from shooting each stack from one central location, the screens were slightly angled towards the center.  The final product produced an amazingly crisp 3648 square foot video image per screen.  After Andrew and show director, Josh Adams of Mindpool Productions saw the screens in action during a rehearsal they decided to also use the projection system to support the main stage performances of Elton John, Kid Rock, The Doobie Brothers and Tim Mcgraw.  Throughout the performances, United Visual camera operators captured live video of the performers and partygoers to project on the massive screens that were viewable by party attendees hundreds of yards away.  United Visual also provided video projection for the main performance stage that features video effects and live performance video throughout the celebration. Main stage video was projected on various custom screens hung from stage lighting trusses by two Eiki XT3 10,000 lumen projectors.  United Visual accomplished the project using eight camera operators, a video site supervisor, a floor director, two teleprompter operators, three tape operators and ten video technicians.

"The scope and quality of the video was awesome. It really added a sense of enormity to what this celebration really represents to all of us as Americans and Harley riders."  said one partygoer, Stuart Carvello of Medinah, IL that traveled up to Milwaukee to take part in the festivities.

"The video system that James and his guys put together was astounding.  They did an absolutely incredible job.  It truly was great to be a part of the project and part of the Harley-Davidson celebration." explained Mike Ferraro, Director of Rentals and Staging for United Visual.  Mike heads the rental and staging department at United Visual headquarters located in Itasca, IL.

The Harley-Davidson celebration project also involved providing factory tour video and video and lighting for the Harley-Davidson antique and custom motorcycle tent located in the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds.  For the antique and custom motorcycle tent, United Visual hung 240' of truss, two 200" diagonal projection screens, two Sharp V10 LCD projectors, 184 source four pars, and a Mackie sound system.  Twenty video monitors where placed on 5' custom truss stands throughout the two Harley-Davidson factory tours.  A DVD player fed video to each 27" monitor via an audio video distribution system.

Click image to enlarge

HD Antique & Custom Tent

Projection Tower & Screen

Projector Stacks