Acuity Insurance is a vital and growing insurance company in Wisconsin. They are a close knit and collaborative culture that was in need of a new and dynamic meeting space for their quarterly town halls. They wanted to maintain their culture through rapid growth, and wanted to expand the campus yet keep the spaces between departments small. The goal was to build a theatre that would keep everyone connected in a 2000 seat auditorium with no single seat allowed to be more than 65 feet from the stage. This was no small feat. The team of Acuity, Camera Corner, Acoustics by Design and NanoLumens worked together to bring this vision to a reality.
The Tech Decision
We met with the Acuity team several times to understand their vision. The first steps in that process was to grasp what technologies they’ve used in the past and where they see themselves in the future. Once we got a feel for what they wanted to do in the space, we were able to take those concepts and compare them the various displays that could be used in the space, along with different set-ups and heights of the solutions.
We went through a long process discussing how much the digital displays within the space would be used. Since they didn’t have a space like this at the time, we pulled together a variety of renderings and models to show what the potential solutions might look like. In these renderings, we explored a lot of different technologies – everything from LED displays to projectors were possibilities. It was a tough room to ensure that the display solutions met the needs of Acuity and worked.
The team told us what they wanted and we helped develop a solution that met all of the product specifications. It’s a lot more than just picking a product and having it shipped. LED solutions work well in these settings because they offer a completely seamless and bezel-free image that is much brighter than other technologies, such as projection.
There were three main reasons that NanoLumens was selected for this project: the six-year warranty, the product is made in the U.S.A. and each display is lightweight. Camera Corner’s recommendations truly showed how much they valued the customer. They did all of their research upfront and made sure that Acuity knew the exact product they were receiving in addition to the display benefits. They found their true needs and their true values in order to determine the best product.
The Solution
The creation of the infrastructure took a little bit longer than everyone anticipated, and then there was a lot of excitement to begin utilizing the space for an upcoming town hall meeting. The Camera Corner crew and the rest of the A/V team worked tirelessly to get everything in place and tested out before the meeting. They did a fabulous job. There was great synergy among the architectural design team, the structural team and the technology team. They put a lot of effort into figuring out all of the key details.
Acoustics by Design determined the technology solutions that helped achieve the client’s vision. The team was amazing, helping to specify the exact products needed. The NanoLumens team was also fabulous, and were chosen after a visit to Chicago to see several different NanoLumens’ systems in action before settling on the NanoSlim solution. Camera Corner, out of Green Bay, was chosen to care for the installation and communication processes. The project was extremely seamless.
One of the things that we realized when designing this theater was that the second story balcony we needed to have sightlines and angles that worked for every seat. We needed every seat in the balcony to be able to look down and still see the speaker, and still see the NanoLumens displays. The two level theater is circular with the seats arranged in a shockingly vertical manner, because they put 2,000 seats in at 65-foot radius. People who enter the theater for the first time gasp; it’s other worldly to have high-quality seats with optional folding desks in such a small space.
The Impact
This project was based off of a few theaters in London where they were struggling to not only see the actors, but also hear the actors. Since they were able to get so many people in such a small space, that was a source of inspiration.
With attendees in the very back row being less than 65-feet away from the speaker, they still feel very involved. They’ll leave the meeting with an extra bounce in their step. That employee is going to help Acuity customers better than ever before. They recently held a town hall meeting with 1,200 people, and also recently held some workshops with about 250 people. The beauty of the space is that both of these size groups worked extremely well because of the intimacy of the space.
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