MTV Europe Music Awards 2017

Total solutions Group were contacted by a prominent designer to look at a quick turn-around project for the MTV Europe Music Awards show. Our initial thought was that this was impossible in the timeframe given the bespoke nature of the project. The brief; to provide a 6 metre diameter hemisphere, which was to be covered in rear projection material, LED rim lighting and the ability to hinge through 70 degrees to reveal the Weeknd, a Canadian singer song writer.

With no possibility to manufacture anything ourselves due to production backlog we decided to look at renting bits and pieces from our partners around Europe. We managed to find a hemisphere in Germany but by itself was not able to perform the movement required so we decided to add a Slick Litebeam circle to the bottom and create a structural interface between this and the hemisphere, which was rented from one of our customers in London. While this was happening, a van was hot footing its way to Germany to collect, the said hemisphere, and bring it back to the factory.

We purchased a large roll of rear projection material and set about cutting it into triangular pieces to cover the 265 or so facets of the hemisphere.

We rented a LED lighting system for the rim of the hemisphere.

We bought a couple of friends into to build the system concurrently and made time to trial build the whole system with all the screen material and LED lighting fitted.

This was then packed up, sent to the Ahoy in Rotterdam, and in production rehearsals, 13 days after the initial contact from the designer! Not a bad effort by those involved.

By all accounts it was the most talked about set piece of the show! Happy days.

Afterwards we were please to receive the following clients thank you note below…

“Dear Ollie & Mervyn,

Massive thanks from everyone at MTV. It was the quickest turnaround in something so complicated and it really looked fantastic on the show. Ollie your determination and skint knuckles staying up all night to try and de wrinkle the panels is applauded we thank you so much. It was a total pleasure working with the TSG team and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Thanks

JO”