Just finished a show for CVFC in France. Show was a single panoramic image that stretched across three sides of the ballroom at the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston. Very cool show. More details to come soon.
Giant panoramic show
March 25th, 2011Transforming a Room
March 2nd, 2011
Show: Private corporate exhibit
Location: WDW Dolphin Hotel, Orlando
Our Role: Provide AV staging services, including sound, lighting, video projection, show automation, technical direction, and exhibitor support.
Technology:
- Sound – A mix of small Meyers and Apogee cabinets. Room was very lively, so plan was to drop in a lot of small cabinets and mini-arrays throughout room.
- Projection – A mix of a couple of Christies running brand videos throughout program and (4) pairs of Panasonic 12k’s playing synchronized 32:9 ultra-wide HD screens around room.
- Lighting – Mostly a green lighting gig with most lights being LED to reduce power consumption and weight on the truss (this is a dead-hang only room – ugh). Lots of special lights for columns, exhibits and anchor booths.
- Exhibits – We provided on-site support for about 65 exhibitors in the room, with PC’s, monitors, sound, and internet.
What we liked about this exhibit:
Our client had a vision. While it was difficult at times interpreting that vision, in the end, he did a good job of getting all of us to understand WHAT he wanted, then trusted us to come up with the HOW. The photos don’t do this show justice – it proved to be a very cool, sexy event.
We also liked how the latest MAPP Online Pro software from Meyer Sound helped us to spec audio more precisely than we could have in the past. With this software, our engineers model the space and then move different types of cabinets around to find the best fit. For this show, our A1 tried several combinations before landing on the mix of Meyers and Apogee speakers. The end result was very clear, clean sound in the space.
Credits:
- Great client!
- Again, Czarnowski did the design and overall creative direction. Really well done.
Leadership Meeting in Orlando
March 1st, 2011AVFX recently provide AV staging services for this corporate event.
Meeting Overview: Corporate Leadership Summit
Location: WDW Dolphin Hotel, Orlando
Our Role: All things technical – sound, lights, projection, video production, computing. In
addition, we TD’d the program and provided the stage manager.
Technology: Meyer Sound, Yahama board, Christie 18k projectors, Vari-Lites, Color Kinetics lights.
What we liked about this event:
- Very unusual event in that through half of the program, the audience could not see the stage. Image-mag had not been planned for this event, but on the fly, we were able to patch together the doc cameras in order to provide i-mag for the audiences seated behind large white boards.
- Living room setups were a hoot. The whole feel of the event was very warm and collaborative.
- LOVE those Christie 18k projectors.
Credits:
First and foremost, our hats are off to Live Marketing in Chicago. VERY well thought out show.
Second is Czarnowski who designed the room and provided all of the logistical support. Very tight and a great design overall.
Third is the Dolphin Hotel – always a pleasure to work in this venue. The hotel is setup well for shows and the staff works hard.
For Our Community…
December 19th, 2010AVFX works with non-profit organizations year-round to do what we can to help. Rarely does this touch us so personally as it did this weekend. My daughter and I took a company vehicle and volunteered to deliver holiday baskets to those in need of a little holiday cheer.
Delivering holiday packages.
It was a personal honor to work with Community Servings to do this. I hope everyone has the opportunity to help someone out over the holidays – it is a rewarding feeling to give back to the community, if even in a small way.
-Steve Halling, President
AVFX gets a little TV time
October 15th, 2010One of AVFX’s favorite clients, Bryan Rafanelli, was recently featured on WCVB TV‘s “People to Watch” program. If you watch real close during the program, you will catch a glimpse of our very own Rob and Darrell. In addition, several events highlighted used AVFX to provide staging services. Probably our most discerning client, our attention to detail and “Done Right the First Time” attitude is a perfect match to the expectations of every planner at Rafanelli Events.
Click here to see the video.
AVFX comes away from TS2 a winner!
July 17th, 2010AVFX won Runner Up for Best of Show at TS2! 
This is fairly amazing since we only had a 10′x10′ booth. I have to say though, that we were determined to make a splash at this show, so we packed just about everything we could into this tiny little booth.
All told, we brought 10 plasma screens to the show.
- (8) 41″ seamless plasmas in two 1×4 configuration walls
- (1) 65″ HD plasma screen as our main image area
- (1) 46″ HD plasma screen running a multi-touch application
There was not more more we could fit into this space. The crew at AVFX did an outstanding job with the media, the design and the implementation. Reminds me how good our people are.
Special thank you’s for several producers who provided us with beautiful high def imagery for our booth.
- Jake Thomas, who provided some really great footage of Boston and the area.
- Artbeats, and Julie Hill specifically, for all of the amazing environmental footage. Wonderful!
- Charlie Slatkin at WOW!, Inc. We didn’t use as much of his footage as I would have liked, but next show Charlie! For those of you that do now know Charlie, really superb producer.
Of special note – the first place winner was Elevations. I want to extend a special thank you to them, as they designed and built our exhibit properties, and did an outstanding job. AVFX also supplied the seamless plasma and display screens for their booth. Must have given them the boost they needed to win over our booth 
Also, the other Runner Up for the show in the island exhibit category was Vector 5. Also using AVFX displays. Is there a theme here?
About TS2: TS2 is essentially a tradeshow for tradeshow people. High standards – tough crowd. Well worth the effort to exhibit here.
Steve Halling
President, AVFX
Getting Started
July 10th, 2010For those of you that did not receive our email, I have officially started working at AVFX. Actually, it has been a few months now since I started, but I have been busy getting settled and getting to know our business.
This is an exciting time for AVFX. In addition to new staff, we recently completed building our brand new 100% HD mobile video production rig. We can provide gorgeous hi-def video from image capture, through processing, and on to display.
We are getting ready to announce some other great investments, but there will be time for that later. For now, I wanted to start this dialog to help clients keep up on what we are doing, while giving others that may not know us a way to get to know the company.
-Steve Halling, President
Here is the copy from our announcement:
AVFX is pleased to announce the return of Steve Halling to the company. Steve will return to AVFX as President, with primary responsibilities over client services, marketing and business development. Current president & founder, Murray Lapides will continue to lead the company with the title of CEO. General Manager, Tom Peckham will continue to concentrate on operations. Kevin Reilly will continue as Director of Sales.
Steve last worked at AVFX in 1995, leaving the company for an Executive Producer position at Lotus Development, and later IBM. While at IBM, Steve rose to Director of Brand Strategy, working primarily on marketing strategy & planning. Leaving IBM in 2006, Steve worked with Keynote Communications, assisting ad agencies in New York & Boston help their clients plan & execute programs to grow their business.
“We’re extremely happy to have Steve back at AVFX,” said CEO Murray Lapides. “When Steve started at AVFX, he brought production house experience from his days at Donna Lawrence & Envision. Now returning, we expect to utilize his large corporate experience.”
“I see this as a positive development for our existing client base,” continued Lapides. “We now have someone in a senior position that’s been on the inside for many years and knows the procurement process, along with the ins and outs of corporate America.”
“My initial order of business will be to reach out to our existing client base,” said Halling. “AVFX has always had an excellent reputation in the industry for innovation and quality service. It was that reputation that made returning an easy decision. My long term goal will be to leverage our existing capabilities to a broader range of clients.”
AVFX, located in Boston, MA provides audio visual staging services for clients throughout North America. Its business is divided between corporate meetings and special events, and providing trade show audio visual. The company can be reached at (617) 254-0770 or info@AVFX.com. For more information, please visit www.AVFX.com.