ATC TURNS ELECTION INTERACTIVE

Birmingham City Council provided live screening of the local election results online with help from ATC.

ATC  provided technical expertise to transform the media centre, which was be based in the Banqueting Centre at Birmingham’s Council House on the night of Thursday 1 May.

Live streaming of the results and video footage of interviews with politicians and observers from the media centre were broadcast on the city council’s official election’s website www.birminghamelections.org.uk from 10:30pm on 1 May.

A 20ft widescreen display in the Banqueting Suite kept up to 100 media and council representatives up to date with live results as they came in from wards around the city.

One of Birmingham City Council’s Officers, said: “We are very excited to be what we believe is the first council in the UK to provide live online coverage of the results direct from the Council House.

“ATC has been invaluable in advising and helping us to develop the technology to turn the election results night into a more interesting and attractive event.

“We have worked with them over several years with local, national and European election results and this year we will be far more interactive than ever before.”

Twin Barco G8 projectors feeding into the Encore system provided up to two live background and six picture in pictures (PIPs) on screen at any one time.

The presentation of the results map of Birmingham was driven by Dell XBS laptops, with zoom in and out functions to show overlaid individual ward results.

PIPs also allowed the Encore system to import live TV relay from Sky News or BBC News 24 for updates from around the UK.

DB4 colour blocks projected LED lighting in alcoves around the room and on the walls, with colour changes in the room throughout the night. A D&B sound system was used for announcements and interviews.
 
ATC also provided cameras in the media centre for interviews and on the roof of Council House for a cityscape shot. All the results information and video footage were fed to press points around the media centre to allow them to import as required for their reports.

Lee Mason, technical project manager at ATC, said: “It was great to be part of this innovative project enabling the live results screening to be broadcast online. The technology used to bring the event to life will make a real difference and present the election results to the media and the general public in a more interactive way.

“The Encore system is just beginning to be more widely used as people appreciate its full potential and how it can transform the presentation of an event.”