Technology Powering Adele's Record-Breaking Video Wall Showcase
In a groundbreaking event for the live-music AV world, Adele's recent residency at the Adele Arena in Munich, Germany, featured the largest outdoor video wall ever deployed for a temporary live event. Covering an impressive area of 4,159.7 square meters (44,775 square feet), the screen shattered the previous records and secured a Guinness World Record for the largest temporary outdoor LED video screen.
The screen, designed by Stufish Entertainment Architects, was conceptualised as a "big scroll" and symbolised "the embrace" metaphorically and practically. Ray Winkler, Stufish CEO, and his team collaborated closely with Adele to bring this vision to life.
The stage and LED video screen were integral components of the larger Adele Arena setup, which was completed by July 21, 2023. The arena, spanning an area equivalent to 60 football pitches, boasted three main entrances for efficient crowd management.
The technical specifications of the LED video wall are not fully disclosed, but it played a central role in creating an immersive experience for the concertgoers. Solotech, an SCN Top 50 integrator, served as the official video supplier for the show, providing a seamless and flexible LED processing solution with 26 Tessera SX40 and over 100 Tessera XD 10G data distribution units.
To ensure the highest quality visuals, Brompton Technology's Hydra advanced measurement system was employed to calibrate the 6,200 tiles of ROE CB5 MKII for the video wall. The concert was sequenced to timecode, with Disguise's Designer software compositing rendered visuals, Notch effects, and capture inputs.
Eight Disguise GX3 servers were used to power the LED wall with full 1:1 redundancy, and the video wall featured Dynamic Calibration technology, PureTone, and Extended Bit Depth for uniform video content at various brightness and color gamut extremes.
The Munich residency is believed to be unlike anything that has ever been done before, redefining how live entertainment can be experienced. The concert was attended by 75,000 Adele fans from August 2-31, 2023.
Adam Callaway from Brompton Technology noted that the team collaborated closely with Solotech for over a year on the project. This collaboration, combined with rigorous testing and validating workflows based on Adele's Las Vegas residency and additional testing in the U.K., ensured a smooth and successful deployment of the record-breaking video wall.
[1] Stufish Entertainment Architects press release, July 18, 2023 [2] The Sphere press release, June 1, 2021
The immersive experience for Adele's Munich residency wasn't just limited to live music; it also incorporated advanced technology features, such as the largest outdoor LED video screen, which showcased data-and-cloud-computing capabilities through Solotech's seamless and flexible LED processing gadgets. Lending their expertise to this technological marvel, Stufish Entertainment Architects and Brompton Technology collaborated closely to ensure the highest quality visuals on the video wall, which boasted innovative technology like Dynamic Calibration, PureTone, and Extended Bit Depth.
