Swiss skin care company Arbonne International recently held its annual National Training Celebration (NTC) at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. This year's three-day affair had over 16,500 attendees and featured a full spectrum of multimedia presentations, events, and music. Columbus, OH-based Bartha Audio Visual has provided NTC with full production services for the past three years and assembled this year's complete show including video, lighting, and sound.

Video projection elements included I-Mag graphics and animations played back on four 18'×26' screens. Each screen had two Barco SLM R12s, double-stacked with a Folsom Encore system routing three High End Systems Axon media servers, three Grass Valley Turbo iDDRs, and graphic computers to the screens via fiber-optic cable. All LED video equipment was provided by XL Video.

Lighting equipment provided by Clearwing Productions included 30 Vari-Lite VL3000 spots, 24 VL3000 washes, 48 VL2416s, 12 VL2500 spots, 18 VL2000 washes, 18 Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 48s, and 64 ETC Source Four ellipsoidals. The console setup was formed around a Wholehog 3 network with eight active DMX universes.

“One of the biggest challenges was the rigging and assembly of the scoreboard structure,” says Bartha's production manager/designer for NTC, Chris Zervos. “Being in the round and doing front projection, we decided to build a floating dimmer platform in the middle of the scoreboard structure. The main grid for the scoreboard was comprised of a 30'×30' super-duty truss with eight 2-ton motors. From that, we hung Barco MiStrip panels and projection screens. We also inverted eight motors inside that truss to hang four 30' runs of truss to support 160 Barco I6 panels. Inside the grid hung a 30'×30' box for a lighting position at the bottom of the scoreboard. Between the grid and lighting box was a 24'×24' dimmer platform built on top of super-duty truss and lifted by eight 1-ton motors. In total, we hung somewhere around 101,000 lbs. in the arena. The structure was very complicated because of the various layers but was well planned and executed by our production riggers, Brian ‘Tuffy’ Knight and Matt Harris.” Reed Rigging provided all the rigging equipment for the show.

An elaborate loudspeaker system based on Meyer Sound's MILO^® high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers was erected to accommodate cover bands on two evenings without bumping into large scenery pieces or the projection screens. “Arbonne organized a tight program loaded with transitional music and sound bites. However, like many corporate clients, they wanted great sound, but didn't want to see the speakers,” says Zervos.

“With all of the obstructions, we had to fly the system much higher than normal and tip it at an extreme angle, which made it a challenge to create even sound coverage,” says sound system designer Kevin Conley. To accomplish the task, Conley and crew hung six main arrays: one at each corner of the room and the other two along the sides of the room. Five of the arrays contained eight MILO cabinets each, while the sixth array featured 10 MILO cabinets. Sub-bass energy was supplied by pairs of M3D-Sub directional subwoofers flown at the tops of two of the arrays, plus eight more M3D-Sub cabinets and two PSW-2 high-power flyable subwoofers groundstacked near and under the stage. All sound equipment was provided by Bartha and Show Systems and was operated on Yamaha PM5D and M7 consoles.