In April, the AV solution designed by Octavius RE and integrated by Marquee AV was lucky enough to win the Bar & Restaurant category and be voted overall winner, at the Mondo dr EMEA & APAC Awards, held at Prolight & Sound in Frankfurt.

Annabels’ was a wonderful project to work on, the scope of what they wanted from their AV meant that so many elements needed to be bought together seamlessly.  The biggest challenge was working with the design scheme.  It is ultra-luxe maximalist and uses lots of high-end materials such as metals, marbles, glass, mosaic, fabrics and so on.  All the rooms are designed to work in different orientations and be repurposed at a moment’s notice to be a night club or meeting room.  There is literally nowhere to hide anything.

The sound system has to work for background music, private events, DJs, live music, nightclub, A-list touring artists and any other format they can think of.  The challenge was to achieve premium audio quality throughout that could flex to every requirement whilst sitting discreetly in the background and not detracting from the luxe aesthetic.  It also had to be easy to use for all the staff, not just the engineers.  The other major consideration was noise management, one of the main rooms is a Garden Terrace with a retractable roof; with the venue being in a densely, populated residential area there were some very strict licensing conditions.

An IPTV solution has been installed to distribute TV, Sky, video content and digital signage via a network meaning screens can be set up in numerous places across the venue, as required.   IPTV is distributed via the Multi Connection AV panels and you can select your sources via the Exterity remote.  The remote looks and feels just like a TV remote, thus de-skilling the operation of what is quite a complex solution.

We were also able to incorporate a vast network of connectivity.  We have analogue and network tie lines between different spaces, we have every flavour of digital multicore for Audio, Lighting and Video in the Nightclub and Garden Terrace so the likes of Lady Gaga or Rhianna can bring in their touring set-up and just plug and play.  We’ve also been able to give engineers access to the various networks we are running such as QLan, LA Net, Exterity and dbNet so they have full control when and where they need it.  And although there are over 100 channels of IO running around the building every member of staff has access to the right level of control to create the best atmosphere and room set up at any time of day.

We hope that what made this project stand out against the other varied and equally as exciting projects was the versatility and simplicity of use for the venue, that gives the in-house team the opportunity to transform their space into anything they want to be.