Hurrairah bin Sohail talks to Congress Rental about the challenges faced when providing equipment for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit to enable a conducive environment for world leaders to discuss international relations.
The ï¬rst ASEAN-Australia Special
Summit was held in Sydney, Australia
from March 16 to 18, 2018. Leaders
from ASEAN member countries and
Australia gathered to discuss issues impacting the
Asia-Paciï¬c region which included topics such as
free trade, cybersecurity and counter terrorism.
Congress Rental was chosen to provide the
equipment for the summit. Jeremy Ducklin,
managing director for Congress Rental, explains
his involvement: “This was a rental solution for
an event and the event was a special ASEAN-
Australia Leader’s Summit in Sydney where the
leaders, ministers and business people from the
ASEAN countries came to Sydney for a series of
events. Our role was to provide the conference
microphones, interpretation equipment, integrated
dome camera solutions as well as sound and
vision distribution for multiple meetings across
three venues.”
Meetings took place at the Sydney International
Convention Centre (ICC) and the Admiralty
House. The Sydney Intercontinental Hotel was
reserved as a backup venue.
The Leader’s Plenary
The Leader’s Plenary was the main event at the
ASEAN-Australia Special Summit. The Plenary
was laid out in a circular shape, with an oval
table in the middle hosting the attendees.
Ducklin explains: “This was the main room for
the event. It was an oval table on a false floor
with rigging and truss above the table to provide
lighting, radiators for infrared simultaneous
interpretation, dome cameras and also large LCD
screens. The room had a false wall surround that
the branding and logos were attached to. The
booths and interpretation were in a room next
door, along with all the supporting equipment
and technicians. Vision distribution was done
by ICC through its IPTV network and the audio
language distribution was done by Congress
Rental to ï¬ve listening and viewing rooms.”
Each leader was given a Bosch Multimedia
microphone which enabled them to listen to
an interpretation feed based on their chosen
language preference. The other leaders in
attendance were stationed at tables in rings
around the outside of the oval table, with Bosch
Integrus receivers and headphones so they could
receive the interpretation for their language of
choice.
In a large room parallel to the main meeting,
Congress Rental installed ten three-person
Audipack interpreter booths. Each interpreter
spoke into a Bosch idesk that was connected to a
Bosch Integrus system for language distribution
to the appropriate channels. Languages
interpreted were English, Bahasa Indonesian,
Lao, Khmer, Thai and Vietnamese.
Congress Rental had to toe a ï¬ne line when
it came to audio and interpretation. Ducklin
explains: “The ICC audio technician mixed
the audio from the microphones provided by
Congress Rental and provided this audio at a low
level in the room. This was to ensure that the
room had some ï¬ll and did not feel dead. The
room needed to be at a low level since there was
interpretation of all the languages and leaders
and delegates in the room wore headphones.
“These languages were then distributed using
the Bosch infrared transmitters and radiators
back to the meeting room and to ï¬ve listening
and viewing rooms throughout the building.
This same audio is then input to the microphone
system using the Omneo interfaces, so that the
audio is provided back to the leaders through
their conference microphone. Doing this ensures
that there is no feedback from the headphones
of the leader back to their microphone.”
Interpreters were also given a video feed of
the current speaker on LCD screens placed in
front of the interpreter booths. The video feed
was captured via Bosch dome cameras that
Congress Rental hung from the ceiling above
the plenary. Each time one of the leaders
activated their microphone to speak, one of the
four 360-degree Bosch dome cameras would
move to automatically focus on the speaker.
Ducklin says: “The Bosch system allows us to
integrate the dome camera switching with the
microphones, so the dome camera automatically
rotates to the pre-programmed position of the
microphone. One Marshall CV502-MB provided
the wide screen shot.”
He continues: “Kramer MV6 switcher and
scaler was used to support the switching
between the four cameras. The ICC vision
technicians were also involved in processing
the vision for use in the room and also for
distributing it throughout the venue on their
IPTV network. Output for the interpreters was
on 22-in Samsung monitors which showed the
head and shoulder shot and six 55-in Samsung
LCDs to show the wide shot.”
Counter-terrorism
conference
The Counter-terrorism conference was held a day
before the Leader’s Plenary. The room where the
conference was held had dome cameras built-in
to the centrepiece.
The speaker’s tables were constructed in a
u-shaped conï¬guration, with a wired Bosch
Dicentis microphone installed for every speaker.
Two 360-degree Bosch dome cameras were built
into the centrepiece to provide a visual display on
the projector as they activated their microphones.
Ducklin says: “The Bosch Dicentis microphones
were ideal in this application as they have the
language facilities built into the microphone
itself and delegates just select their language of
choice using the touch screen. The interpreter
booths were in a room next door and the dome
cameras provided a head and shoulders shot for
the interpreters. A small HDSDI output ï¬xed
camera provided the wide angle shot.”
Ducklin also talks about the importance of
providing quality video for interpretation: “The
Bosch dome cameras provided a HD video feed
of each speaker so that the interpreters could
read the speaker’s body language for accurate
interpretation.”
Similar to the Leader’s Plenary, Congress
Rental set up a room parallel to the conference
for the simultaneous interpretation. Seven
soundproof Audipack interpreter booths were
installed, facing a projector screen that displayed
the conference. Languages interpreted were
English, Bahasa Indonesian, Lao, Khmer, Thai
and Vietnamese.
Eight 23-in Samsung monitors were provided
to the interpreters to observe proceedings.
Blackmagic Design HD-SDI splitters and a
Blackmagic Design HD-SDI to HDMI convertor
were also employed.
CEO Forum
The CEO Forum was a component of the
ASEAN-Australia Business Summit where
prominent business leaders were invited to join
ASEAN members and Australian politicians to
help strengthen the trade and investment links
between ASEAN and Australia.
Congress Rental assisted in both the roundtable
and lunch component of the Business Summit,
supplying a range of equipment for both events
inside the ICC.
At the CEO Forum Roundtable, delegates sat
around a large hollow square table and used
the Bosch conference microphones supplied by
Congress Rental for their discussion.
Congress Rental set up one sound-proof
Audipack booth at the back of the room for
two Indonesian interpreters. Each delegate was
given a Bosch headset to listen to the English
interpretation of the President of Indonesia’s
speech. Each receiver was pre-programmed
by the Congress Rental team to match each
delegate’s language preference. Congress Rental
also supplied interpreter audio feeds, and vision
feeds via a Bosch HD dome camera to the media
centre.
The Leader’s Retreat
The Leader’s Retreat was the ï¬nal meeting for
the Summit and it provided a
chance for attendees to discuss
further issues. The meeting
took place at Admiralty House,
a heritage building. Admiralty
House is the current residence
of the governor general which
meant that Congress Rental
was facing a time crunch to
install the relevant equipment,
being allotted just a single day
for its work.
Three rooms were set up for
the event; the meeting room
for the leaders, the viewing
room and the interpreter room.
The meeting room housed 24
of the top leaders from ASEAN
and Australia. Each leader
had a Bosch Dicentis
wireless microphone
with a Bosch headset
to listen to their
language preference.
Wireless microphones
were chosen to avoid taping cables, as no tape
was allowed in the building for preservation
reasons.
A total of seven interpreter booths were
installed to support the interpretation for the
event. Again, the interpreters were supplied
with a visual of the meeting via a Bosch HD
dome camera to ensure accurate interpretation.
The interpretation feeds were transmitted the
language feeds accordingly.
Ducklin talks about some unique challenges
faced due to the selection of the Admiralty House
as the venue: “Due to the historic nature of the
building, there was no air conditioning at the
venue. This would have made interpreting very
difï¬cult for the interpreters, as it was one of the
hottest days in March. Fortunately, we installed
new air conditioners into the booths to ensure the
interpreters were comfortable and cool.”
Looking back at the project, Ducklin details
what Congress Rental learned: “We had a
container of equipment coming from Congress
Rental Singapore. We had planned to send it
just before Chinese New Year. But our shipper let
us down in picking it up prior to Chinese New
Year, so we missed the boat literally. We had a
choice; put the equipment on a boat and risk
being late and not getting the booths on time
or go with air freight with its huge expense.
We opted to air freight 4,500kg of booths and
equipment because the risk was too high and
failure is not an option. In retrospect, I would be
more cautious of Chinese New Year and send the
equipment for the Summit earlier.”