Red Haute Glammies is the annual celebration of the ‘Glambassadors’ of one of the UK’s fastest growing UK skincare brand, Tropic. Utilising over 500 ROE Visual CB5 LED panels in giant video walls, CPL Enhanced Technology deployed Brompton Tessera SX40 processors and XD data distributors to power the ever-changing backdrop, chosen because of their extensive range of features and built in redundancy.
Tropic is a UK based company owned and created by Susie Ma, Founder and CEO. Growing up in Cairns, Australia, Susie loved her grandma’s face-scrubs. When she and her mother moved to the UK in Susie’s teens, Susie started to make her grandma’s face-scrubs to remember her, and then to sell at Greenwich Market. Appearing on The Apprentice in 2011, she gained the backing of Lord Sugar, who helped her to build her company and, in a little over ten years since the official launch, Susie has grown the company from 400 to 20,000 ambassadors, each selling the organic, sustainably sourced products to clients across the UK and beyond, earning her a place on the Sunday Times’s top 100 companies 2023.
The Red Haute Glammie Awards is a celebration of this hard work and a moment to recognise the work done, not only for the company, but for charities, too. Working closely with event producers, Pandora Events, CPL Enhanced Technology supplied the screens and lighting under the expert guidance of Lee Gruszeckyj, Director of CPL and Project Manager for the event.
The awards ceremony took place in Birmingham’s Resorts World Arena, with 4,200 of the company’s most vibrant ‘Glambassadors’ welcomed to an unforgettable day of presentations and entertainment, finished with an evening gala. The dramatic stage comprised a back wall measured 16.2m by 8.4m high, the side returns were an additional 5.4m by 8.4m each and two 7.8m by 8.4m IMAG displays completed the stage, all powered by three Brompton Tessera SX40 processors connected to the LED panels via Brompton Tessera XD data distribution units. These fixtures not only framed the spectacular entertainment from the house gospel choir and solo artists, but also displayed important information for upcoming product releases and relayed live footage as well as remote video calls.
The signal path was planned and optimised to ensure efficient routing and minimise latency. A redundant fibre loop was also established to connect the ROE LED panels to the Tessera SX40 processors. This loop provided a backup signal path in case of failure at any point in the primary signal path, ensuring uninterrupted display performance for the entire event.
“Brompton Tessera SX40 Processors offer a host of features that make them ideal for this application,” said Gruszeckyj. “OSCA (On-Screen Colour Adjustment) was utilised for fixture-based seam adjustments, allowing the content to seamlessly blend across all the screens, including the 16.2 metre back wall. When in OSCA mode, the interface appears directly on the LED fixture, showing mouse position and highlighting the selected elements that are being adjusted. It enables quick and intuitive adjustments for an efficient workflow. The colour balancing option also came in useful when displaying large images of the products.”
Redundancy is vital for shows such as these, not only for the audience in the room, but also the large audience that were remotely live streaming the event. The Tessera SX40 offers full redundancy in the form of switched auto-arranging power supply and the Closed Loop, allowing two outputs to be configured to operate as a redundant pair. If the primary signal is lost, the secondary signal is implemented within a single frame, ensuring live content continues to display seamlessly. The SX40 also supports Processor Redundancy, enabling a second processor to be configured to take over the signal within a few seconds of the main signal being lost, this feature can be used with or without Closed Loop.
“The Red Haute Glammies was a spectacular hybrid event, installed and managed expertly by CPL,” said Brompton’s Patrick Goodden, Technical Sales Manager (UK and Ireland). “We’re delighted that our processors played a part in ensuring that the dynamic video wall content could be displayed with total clarity and peace of mind.”
