PORSCHE TAYCAN LAUNCH

PORSCHE TAYCAN DUBAI LAUNCH

DONE EVENTS ASSEMBLES A TRUSTED TEAM OF CREATIVES TO DELIVER AN ELECTRIFYING CAR LAUNCH EVENT, THE LIKES OF WHICH HAVE NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE. TPMEA FINDS OUT MORE...

In normal circumstances, the launch of a new car isn’t something that would necessarily get our pulse racing. However, when a car launch comes in the form of a stunning 33,000 sq m light show on the façade of the Burj Khalifa, combined with a unique drive-in concept featuring a huge LED screen and a 200m drone show… Well, it’s safe to say that our interest is well and truly piqued.

“The brief was simply to make some noise about the launch of Porsche’s first fully electric model – the Taycan,“ Sonu Balchandani, Production Director at Done Events, explained to TPMEA. With almost free rein over the project, the Done Events team set about creating a concept that would “take the launch to the next level”. After coming up with an initial idea of having a drive-in event hosted at Dubai Design District (d3), the concept soon grew to something that comprised multiple elements being deployed over two different venues.

“We introduced a drone show, which reflected the story that was being told by the film on the big screen at d3,” Balchandani commented. “We also added the Burj Khalifa projection,” he recalled. Taking place two nights prior to the drive-in show, the Burj Khalifa part of the project saw an original launch film projected onto the world’s tallest building. “Everything was filmed, and some amazing promotional material was created for social media, which increased the exposure of the launch even more.”

With so many elements to plan and execute, Done Events called upon a trusted team of suppliers, including AO Drones, GTV Film Production and MediaPro International. Keenereyed regular readers may recall that all these companies collaborated recently to produce one of Dubai’s most impressive activations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the #StrongerTogether campaign [TPMEA 25] and, according to Balchandani, it was great to get the band back together.

“It was really important that we were able to get the majority of the same contractors who worked on the #StrongerTogether project,” he revealed. “Firstly, because they are all excellent at what they do, but just as importantly, because we all work together so well as one team. Everybody really brought their A-game to the project.” Girish Bhat, Managing Director, Done Events, added: “When Al Nabooda Automobiles approached us to launch their first all-electric sports car, we wanted to bring together the Porsche soul to the launch of this car with a powerful message,” he continued. “As a team, we looked at all possible scenarios to have as many people as possible witness this launch at the same time. And what better way to do that than by recognising the notable Porsche brand proudly on the tallest building in the world?”

Bhat praised Balchandani for his tireless work on the event. “Sonu and the team worked for more than four months to create the perfect recipe for this launch,” he commented. “With the help of all relevant government entities, we were able to successfully execute the event in just the way we envisioned it – or maybe even better!”

‘WE ONLY HAD ONE SHOT’ GTV Film Production played an important role in the project, not only creating the content that was projected onto the Burj Khalifa, but also filming the projection and creating another video from that, which was played on the big

screen at d3. Not only that, but GTV also filmed the d3 event and created a promotional video, which was shared widely across social media by Porsche. “Of course, filming was an important part of the project and it was exciting because of the unusual nature of the event,” commented Tewe Pannier, Principle Partner at GTV. “However, for us, the biggest and certainly the most timeconsuming part of the project was the creation of the content that was played on the Burj Khalifa.”

Discussing the Burj Khalifa content further, Pannier explained that while they worked to a brief to fit in with Porsche’s global campaign, which focused on the “soul of all Porsche models, leading to the new all-electric Taycan”, the amount of stock footage that GTV utilised was extremely limited. “The rest was created by our artists and designers,” he revealed. “This was a very demanding process – especially for a big global brand such as Porsche. Understandably, they are very particular about what is associated with their brand, but the team worked extremely well together and, after 10 days and 10 nights of work, the end result was successful, under their guidance and with the help of Done Events.”

The content in question is a three-minute video, which charts the history of Porsche models, from the original hybrid Lohner-Porsche in 1899, to the 1948 Porsche 356, the Porsche 911 in 1963, the 2013 918 Spyder, 2014 919 Hybrid, and finally the brand-new all-electric Taycan. Stock footage is used to refer to each model, while a variety of electric shock and lighting bolt-type effects are used throughout to fit in with the theme of electricity. The content comes to an end with the logos for Porsche, as well as Al Nabooda Automobiles, which represents Porsche in the UAE, to reinforce the branding.

GTV’s Senior Project Manager, Jana Schumacher, explained how the content was created. “All design, animation, compositing and rendering for the film was carried out using Adobe After Effects,” she began. “We used Maxon Cinema 4D for the key visual animation, 3D textures and reflections on Burj Khalifa, while the real footage was pre-edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, with additional vector work done in Adobe Illustrator.” The content was virtually projected onto the Burj Khalifa LED façade via a disguise media server.

Schumacher explained how ‘keystoning’ was used in order to ensure that the various text elements and logos appeared as intended on the curved façade of the Burj Khalifa. “As the content included a number of text elements in corporate CI, it was necessary to optically precompensate and distort the content to ensure that the text appeared perfectly straight, taking into consideration the shape and structure of the building’s façade,” she recalled. Pannier added: “Porsche’s intention was to deliver a strong message, so we had to get this aspect right.”

With the content created, calibrated and ready for projection onto the Burj Khalifa, the next task for GTV was the filming of the event – and Pannier wasn’t taking any chances. “We have filmed events at the Burj Khalifa many, many times over the years, so we were very confident,” he began. “However, with the scale of this show, if there had been any kind of mistake with any camera, then it would have been a disaster.” So, for the first time ever, Pannier decided to take the extra precaution of backing up every camera position with an extra camera. “We only had one shot at this, and we really had to make sure that everything was captured properly.”

Reflecting on the project, Pannier pinpointed the “tight” timeframe as a challenging aspect. “There were lots of long nights, but that is normal – it comes with the territory,” he said, philosophically. “It was a tight turnaround, but

everyone came together, and we were able to deliver a project to be proud of.”

In fact, after working with Done Events on the #StrongerTogether project earlier in the year, Pannier found this to be comparatively easy – operationally at least. “The #StrongerTogether project was a real crunch job, because it was so massive,” he recalled. “Crunch time is when you really get to know people. I told Sonu after we finished that event that I’ve rarely seen a person stay so cool in such a potentially stressful situation, working on such a complex project. Seeing the way that he and the Done team handled that, I knew that this would be well within their capabilities.”

He added: “This project was a credit to Done Events – they are highly professional, very mature in their operations and they did an amazing job in creating one event out of the various elements that combined to make up the project. It was an amazing event and we were very happy and proud to be a part of it.”

The project comes at an opportune moment for GTV, as the company has just formed a new division – Paradox Studios – which is based in Riyadh and specialises in animation and 3D shows. “We’ve already secured some great clients who I can’t mention by name yet,” Pannier commented. “We’ve been in this space with GTV for a number of years, so it’s great to finally have a focused company set up and devoted especially to the discipline.”

‘THE BEAUTY OF DRONES’ With the Burj Khalifa projection completed and filmed successfully, the next phase of the launch was the drive-in event at d3. A total of 120 cars were admitted to the event, with three people allowed in each car. “Each car was pre-registered and welcomed into the venue to park in its preallocated position,” Balchandani explained. Bhat gave more details on the extra measures. “All the usual COVID-19 precautions were in place, such as temperature checks, masks, extensive signage and isolation rooms. The entire team took PCR tests prior to the event and worked hard to make sure that the venue and guests adhered to health and safety norms.” Balchandani added: “We’ve been working in these conditions for a while now, so we know how to put on an event while keeping everyone safe.” Once all the cars had been guided into their allocated parking spots – “there was 7m between each car; more than double what is normally required, to make sure we were extra-safe” – an eight-minute video was played on the big screen. Beginning with a welcoming speech from Al Nabooda Automobiles’ CEO, K Rajaram, the video showed footage from the Burj Khalifa projection, combined with stock footage of previous Porsche

models, graphics created by GTV and finally the new Taycan.

At this point, most productions would have been more than happy with the setup. However, never resting on its laurels, Done Events brought in AO Drones to provide a spectacular drone show, which ran above the big screen, adding an additional visual element to the already eyecatching show.

“The brief for this project was a bit different to how we worked on #StrongerTogether,” explained AO Drones’ Marco Niedermeier. “This time, because there was already a large screen that was playing the main show, the drone show had to complement what they had on the screen, rather than overpower it. We had to be mindful of the other content.”

In all, 120 drones were used to form 10 different formations. “We also had 10 spare drones on the set in case of any faults,” Niedermeier revealed, adding that, thankfully, the spares didn’t need to be called upon. The Producer described how every time the various Porsche models were mentioned in the video, the drones formed the outline of that particular model in the sky. “We also displayed the Al Nabooda and Porsche logos, as well as various other relevant formations,” he said. “We delivered the show by timecode.”

AO Drones has upgraded its fleet since the #StrongerTogether project, switching over to 5G and also giving the lights a huge boost in power to 900 lumens. “They are around four times as bright as the previous model,” Niedermeier confirmed. “We are happy to say that this makes them among the brightest drones in the world.”

This extra brightness was invaluable, given the challenging task of making the drones stand out while flying close to the bright LED screen and with the illuminated city skyline as a backdrop. “It had a massive impact,” Niedermeier said of the upgrade. “With all the other elements in the show, the drones had to be extremely bright to be effective.”

The AO Drones team had two rehearsal days to ensure that everything was in place and ready for show day. “We did an initial site visit to check the GPS signal, then the day before the show we were back on site to do a full test flight of the show, checking the drones, cameras and that everything was running as we would expect,” Niedermeier explained. On this occasion, the team made some minor alterations to the timecode after the first test run in order to get the timing with the video absolutely right. “That’s the beauty of drones,” he added. “You can test and recalibrate numerous times without any extra cost. You can’t do something like this with pyro, for example.”

As with the #StrongerTogether project, Niedermeier’s son, Kevin, operated the drones. He explained what the biggest challenge of the event was for him. “The safety distance around the drones was a major consideration,” he revealed, explaining that, for a 200m drone show, they had to implement a 400m secure area. “We had to consider the screen, the VIP area, the surrounding buildings, parking lots and roads – with such a large area, we had to work closely with security to ensure everything was clear before launching.”

Apart from maintaining the large secure perimeter, Marco explained that everything else about the project was fairly straightforward – a fact he put down in no small part to the comfortable co-operation with Done Events.

“That is why we didn’t have many challenges,” he said of the collaboration. “We have worked on many projects together over the years and we know each other well. They know what we need, we know what they need

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and, most importantly, I trust them. It was great teamwork.” Balchandani echoed these sentiments, adding: “My relationship with Marco goes back 18 years; I trust him with everything.”

As a proud German, Niedermeier was delighted to work with one of his native country’s most famous marques. “Porsche is a great German company,” he commented. “This was a really nice project to work on. There aren’t that many events during COVID-19 times, and this was certainly one of the most impressive.”

‘A VERY SPECIAL MOMENT’ Another company that was brought back into the fold following a successful delivery on the #StrongerTogether project was MediaPro International. Tasked with supplying the d3 site, MediaPro provided a full audio, video and lighting package. “We were very happy with the overall outcome of the show,” commented Shaam Pudaruth, COO, MediaPro International. “All the technical aspects came together beautifully to create an amazing experience for the guests and the client. The venue is a spectacular one, the car is beautiful, and our technical elements just added to the aesthetics.”

The audio supply comprised a mixture of Martin Audio, Meyer Sound and L-Acoustics solutions, with 16 Martin Audio MLA plus eight subs, eight Meyer Sound MINA loudspeakers, as well as two each of L-Acoustics’ X15 stage monitors and SB15M subwoofers supplied. A Yamaha QL1 was the console of choice. “We also supplied the FM transmitter with the required licence, so guests could tune into the event audio from the comfort of their cars,” Pudaruth noted.

The main visual element was the large central 15m by 8.5m screen, which was made up of 240 panels of Absen PL4.8 XL. Lighting came in the form of 40 SGM Lighting P10s, 24 Q-7s, eight CKC Lighting V8 Aurora Profiles and 48 EK Lights Q48E LED washes, all controlled by an MA Lighting grandMA2 light console.

Reflecting on what he described as “a smooth setup and event”, Pudaruth shared his experience of working with familiar partners. “Working with Done Events is always a pleasure,” he commented. “Their brief is clear, and they know exactly what they want from the show. This, in turn, makes it easier for us to design and execute the job. Special thanks must go to our Project Manager, Fahad Khan, who managed the event, and my whole team. And, of course, thanks to Done Events for always trusting us.”

The main challenge as far as Balchandani was concerned was “meeting expectations, timeframes and budgets”, all while having numerous stakeholders to impress.

“The moment you go into that virtual and digital zone, the possibilities are endless,” he commented. “Everybody has got their own ideas, and creative process, so it’s important to manage those expectations and only promise what you can deliver.” While he reported “plenty of sleepless nights” and “insane pressure”, the Production Director was delighted with the end result. “This was the first time that Porsche has ever done anything like this in Dubai, so it was a big statement for them,” he commented. “The client was extremely impressed.”

And this view was confirmed by Markus Peter, Marketing Director at Porsche Middle East and Africa, who praised the show. “It was a very special moment watching more than one million LED lights turning the façade into one big screen to celebrate the start of the Taycan introduction in our region,” he said.

Speaking broadly about the short-term prognosis for an events industry that has been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Balchandani was keen to stress that, with the right mindset, anything is possible. “If event agencies and creatives come up with innovative solutions, even given the present scenario, things can work. The government support is there – all it takes is a little bit of perseverance,” he stated. “Everything we have put in place for this event is available. It’s not like you have to pay billions to do something like this; it just takes the right team of people, the right creativity and work ethic, and thankfully we had all of those on this project.” Photos: Done Events www.ao-technology.com www.doneevents.com www.gtv.ae www.mediapro-av.com