SAP, the world’s leading provider of business software, is known for helping companies run more efficiently through enterprise application tools. SAP’s annual Sapphire Now brings together more than 20,000 customers, partners, and prospects from across the world to showcase new ideas and solutions from across SAP’s extensive product line.
Showcase for Simplicity
The theme for the Sapphire Now 2015 event was aligned with SAP’s new “Run Simple” advertising campaign. In the opening keynote, SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott stated, “When you make business ‘run simple,’ you make life ‘run simple.’” He went on to explain that businesses that accomplish this approach are both “data driven and seamless.” The goal of this year’s Sapphire Now event was to showcase how SAP’s recently developed S/4HANA business platform can give enterprises the necessary tools to run simple and provide insight and intelligence that can add value to their operations.
“With ‘Run Simple’ as the primary message, it was pivotal to produce an event that was staged with simplicity, yet [was also] powerful, innovative, and accessible in order to engage attendees with the technology,” says Donnie Smith, technical producer at i4D Events.
For the 2015 conference, SAP updated a previously designed open networking space with interactive experiences for attendees to connect with SAP’s technology and services.
“The large networking area was redesigned to create a powerful visual statement for the ‘Run Simple’ campaign and to showcase the power of the S/4HANA platform,” notes Smith.
To create this visual impact, the event production team designed a massive video octagon that encompassed close to 225 diagonal feet and flown 14 feet above the open concept interactive area, better known as the “SAP Experience Zone.”
On the show floor, centered within the interior of Experience Zone, a second 26-foot octagon was designed with high resolution video of a digital map, surrounded by four 58-inch 4K interactive touchscreen video monitors.
“The eight screens that comprised the exterior of the octagon were mainly used for brand messaging with animated imagery to reinforce the ‘Run Simple’ campaign,” says Smith. “The interior area featured four interactive showcases of the S4/HANA platform, where users could engage with the products and select data from current SAP clients that would be represented on the large digital map and the flown screens that wrapped the ‘Zone.’”
The Experience Zone, which was also used as an overflow area for the general sessions, displayed feeds of the speakers and keynote presentations.
Projecting and Connecting
i4D Events worked with LMG Show Technology to execute the video displays for Sapphire Now. “The interactive display featured 4K projection and touchscreens to provide the highest quality resolution available to showcase the SAP product line,” notes Michael Kurtz, senior account executive with LMG.
The surface of the interactive octagon consisted of a custom, seamless 26.6-by-26.6-foot Stewart Snowmatte screen. It was surrounded by four 58-inch 4K Touchscreen Planar monitors.
“We used two Christie Roadie 4K45 projectors and designed a specialized rig using mirrors to project downward onto the custom surface,” says Kurtz. “The image had a single blend using the Spyder X20 to create the 26-foot octagon image, and using a seamless custom screen and 4K monitors resulted in a high impact interactive display that showcased the 4K resolution capabilities of the client’s product line.”
Above the interactive elements, the massive flown octagon was a marvel of projection. LMG used a total of 44 Panasonic PT-DZ21K HD projectors — 24 for the exterior screens and 20 for the interior, front projected on 18 screens to create the octagon. “We used eight 20-by-80-foot screens to create the exterior projection, and the interior included ten 20-by-60-foot screens,” says Kurtz.
All the screens for the Experience Zone octagon were custom fabricated by Production Plus Technologies and Sparks. They encompassed 25,425 square feet of surface and 107,833,920 total visible pixels, including the interactive component.
For switching, both the outside and inside screens were sourced using a total of 18 Dataton Watchout servers, with each server using three inputs for the exterior screens and two for each interior screen.
The Watchout servers were equipped with four 3G SDI input cards, used for live inputs to display the widescreen sessions and I-Mag to ensure the best quality available for the screens. In addition, the cabling effort to feed the screens was an immense undertaking. For the octagon video display alone, the fiber length ran more than 7.33 miles.
The general session took place in a designated area on the main show floor, with enough seating for close to 5,000 attendees. Large widescreens placed throughout the floor displayed the presentations and other content.
“The sheer volume of projection — the main stage, the Experience Zone, and the additional screens flown throughout the hall — created an extremely immersive environment,” says Scott Weyrauch, LMG’s senior account executive, who oversaw the video production for the main show floor and general session components.
For the general session, a multi-screen stage design included three 20-by-96-foot widescreens used to support content for the speakers and two 18-by-32-foot screens for I-Mag. Four widescreens with three-stacked blended HD projection and additional screens were positioned across the show floor to view the main presentations and to support digital signage throughout the course of the event. “From practically any angle, you could see what was happening in the main theater and felt engaged in the content,” says Weyrauch.
Pushing the Limits
“The real story here,” adds Kurtz, “is the collaboration of the team and the leadership, creativity and technical expertise of i4D Events — from production, content, scenic, technical, rigging, and carpentry — and how they seamlessly pulled everyone together to create a solution that over-delivered and went way beyond the expectation.”
Sapphire Now required close to 10 months of planning, and plenty of advanced testing was also required to ensure the technical solution for the interactive Experience Zone setup.
“4K is new to the market for live events, and this setup was a first for the industry,” says Kurtz, noting how the LMG technical team set up a “mini-octagon” in their Orlando warehouse to ensure the downward 4K projection and custom rigging solution would work successfully onsite.
Those efforts helped Sapphire Now 2015 deliver a one-of-a-kind immersive and interactive experience for the event’s attendees, reinforcing the company’s “Run Simple” message. One online review described the show floor as “a work of art and run by science.”
In addition, the feedback from SAP executives was extremely positive, according to Smith. “SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott was delighted and had stated ‘this is the SAP I want to project to our customers,’” he notes.
“SAP is a very knowledgeable, technical client, and very creative,” Smith adds. “They often challenge us to deliver big ideas that can be on, or even off the edge of what technology and/or physical planning and execution timeframes may allow. With our internal staff and trusted partners like LMG, we feel anything is possible. They require high attention to detail, and a can-do attitude. The event team cannot be afraid to push the limits of what is possible, and that is what we delivered.”
