Digital Projection, a specialist in laser projectors, has announced that Elmia, a leading convention centre in Jönköping, in southern Sweden, is the first venue of its kind to be equipped with the firm’s cutting-edge Satellite MLS projection system.
Elmia is home to four large exhibition halls, as well as several smaller spaces, within a 34,000-square-metre site. The venue hosts trade shows, conferences and exhibitions, concerts and live events, and is also home to DreamHack, a popular esports and gaming festival.
The right solution for limited space
Since Elmia and Austman Consulting have a long-standing relationship, the venue turned to the Sävedalen-based AV expert once more when it was time to modernise its projection system, according to Mats Persson, Austman’s business development manager, who says:
“We have a long-term relationship with the client and are involved in all of their image-related projects,” he says. Talking about the brief for this project, he adds: “The customer asked for an optimal solution with high image quality and a system that would work for a long time.”
Lars Persson is chief information officer at Elmia. He explains that the greatest challenge for Austman was the limited space available for the chosen projector:
“In all our environments – from Hammarskjöldsalen, which holds 1,100 persons, to Rydbergsalen, which has a capacity of 300 – the control rooms are quite small, and a large projector produces a lot of heat, meaning it’s difficult for technicians to sit there. This compromises the working environment.
“Digital Projection has a good solution for this: placing the projector head in the control room and the light sources in a different room, thus removing the problem of heat and noise. This also lowers the projection room temperature by 10°C and improves the working environment.”
Future-proofing the project
The Satellite Modular Laser System (MLS) from Digital Projection was the solution to this challenge. Satellite MLS gives the installer genuine flexibility, especially in situations where space and access are constrained, by isolating the loud, heat-producing light sources from the projector ‘head’ in the control room. These light sources are rack-mounted in conventional 4U modules in an adjacent room.
“We saved money on not having to rebuild our control room by rack-mounting the projector in an adjacent room,” says Lars Persson. “It would have been a major expense for us, particularly because we didn’t want to reduce seating capacity either. It is a great solution for us to have the projector head separated from the control room.”
The projector head in Elmia is positioned behind a hole in the back wall of Rydbergsalen and produces an image that is 6 metres wide from a distance of 22 metres. According to Mats Persson of Austman, the TITAN projector head was selected for the Satellite Modular Laser System due to its balance of brightness and cost. Although Elmia is presently only using two-thirds of the TITAN head’s maximum brightness of 30,000 lumens, this investment in Satellite MLS is future-proofed.
“We currently use 20,000 lumens, which is more than enough for our needs,” says Lars Persson. “But you never know, we might need to move it to another place at some point in future that requires more brightness.”
Mats Persson adds: “As the customer’s business consists of renting out meeting rooms, and their customers expect an optimal visual experience, it was natural to use TITAN and Satellite MLS.
“We are the first convention centre in the Nordics with Digital Projection’s Satellite MLS system, and we have it because our customers demand the best quality. With this projector from Digital Projection, we see a huge difference in brightness, light quality and colour rendering. It’s a completely different level of projector.”
Recently, Digital Projection’s technology was chosen by French event and content creation agency e’motion and technical service provider ETC (Entertainment Technology Center) to support a major new exhibition at the Palace of Versailles.
