Working with Encore Event Technologies, TSA was brought in to hang two large-format LED screens at the Pan Pacific. On paper, that is a load and a fixing. In practice, both rooms had ceiling voids already carrying services, and neither had been built with a screen of this size in mind.
The rooms also had to stay rooms. These are presentation spaces that sell on how they look, so whatever went in had to carry the load and then disappear into the ceiling detail.
The two rooms wanted opposite things. The River Room needed one screen, in one place, permanently. The Golden Ballroom needed to be several rooms depending on the week.
The Process
Fixed in one room. Flexible in the other.
Design the support to the ceiling that exists
TSA designed both support systems to install with minimal to no changes to the existing services in the ceiling voids, rather than around a clear span that was not there. In the Golden Ballroom that meant setting the track line into the ceiling detail so the running gear sits inside the architecture instead of below it.
Install without closing the rooms down to structure
Both systems went in as retrofits into complete, existing rooms. The steel was sized and made off site, then lifted and fixed in place, so the work stayed a rigging install rather than turning into a ceiling rebuild.
Hand over a screen that moves the way the room sells
The River Room screen was set, proved and handed over fixed. The Golden Ballroom was handed over as a working reconfiguration: panels grouped as three screens, as two, or joined into a single large-format display, changed by venue staff between events rather than by a rigging crew.
On-stage kit
- Static rigging system, River Room
- LED panel tracking system, Golden Ballroom
- Purpose-made support steel, fabricated off site
- Suspension points integrated into existing ceiling services
Two ballrooms that still look like ballrooms.
Encore and the hotel came out of it with two rooms that carry large-format LED without either room advertising the fact. The River Room runs its five-metre display as a permanent feature. The Golden Ballroom sells as three configurations rather than one, which is the difference between one event shape and several.
Neither install required the ceilings to be opened up and rebuilt. The rigging was designed to fit the building as found, which is the part that decides whether a screen like this is a fit-out or a construction project.
