Central Presentations Ltd. (CPL) brought expertise, innovation and full technical
production – sound, lighting and video – to the recent high profile ID Live roadshow
by L’Oreal, working for producers Bright Productions.

The intense four-date back-to-back tour visited Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds and London.
It is L’Oreal’s widest attended event showcasing the latest cutting, colouring and
styling trends for AW15, offering live and close-up education from L’Oreal’s talented
team of ID artists across four evenings of action, inspiration and fashion.

CPL’s project manager Lee Gruszeckyj worked closely with Andy Oswin from
producers Bright, who initiated the roadshow’s overall concept, set and video design
and developed the video content to ensure the presentation environment was as
cutting edge as the hair-art. The show design involved a 20 metre long runway
denoted by a strip of white vinyl on the floor. Along this were three equidistantly
spaced 2 x 2 metre staging podiums, with the audience seated down both sides. The
models sat on these whilst the various hair treatments and styling took place … the
ID artists describing their actions in a choreographed sequence as the styling
progressed.

In between the stage podiums were four “pods’ constructed from black powder
coated scaff / pipe-clamped frames, forming deconstructed boxes 2 metres tall by 1
metre wide.

Three 1 metre long Showtec Octostrip LED battens, picked for their thin low profile,
outlined these pods – attached via trigger clamps – producing the rich and vibrant
neon colours specified by L’Oreal.

For general lighting, 12 x ARRI 650 Watt fresnels on wind-up stands were located
each side of the runway behind the audience seating to cross-light the space which
worked highly effectively. These and the LED strips were controlled from an
Avolites Quartz desk, a compact and neat solution for a tour of this size.

The compact audio system was d&b, utilizing a mix of E6 and Q7 speakers plus 15
inch E-SUBS fed with a combination of announcements and playback music tracks.
A Yamaha Q1 desk routed and processed all sources and a selection of mics
including Shure radios and DPA headsets were provided for the hair artists.

A FreeSpeak II wireless comms systems ensured that the floor manager and the
various technical crew easily kept in touch during the evening shows.

The AV elements comprised a Sony PMW200 camera fitted with a Teradek wireless
system that captured the live demo action plus backstage and other interviews,
which were output via a switcher to four 55 inch LED screens positioned around the
runaway, showing a mix of live camera images, playback visuals and graphics. A
highlights video was edited and compiled as the tour progressed.

Before hitting the road, CPL racked up as many of the components up as possible
including a producer’s package with monitors and camera control for Andy Oswin
who also called the show. This ensured get-ins were quick and efficient where time
was tight and everyone had to work fast.