75 Years of Porsche Sports Cars, Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, June 2023

"Driven by Dreams" was the title chosen by Porsche for the spectacular show staged to mark "75 Years of Sports Cars“: Porscheplatz is the plaza in front of the company museum at its headquarters in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, and starting at 10 p.m. it was turned into a stage with the front of the building becoming the backdrop for a multimedia journey through the successful history of the firm's sports cars. The focus, of course, was on the visionary people at Porsche and the racing drivers who together were instrumental in the brand's rise to fame – and on the most legendary cars, which were presented that evening in the plaza and admired by the 800 guests. Actors, athletes and local politicians were joined in the audience by members of the Porsche and Piech families of entrepreneurs as well as by racing drivers such as Hans-Joachim Stuck and Walter Röhrl. The evening got underway with the opening of a special exhibition in the museum, including a concept study on the newly interpreted "Mission X" hypercars.

In our role of the museum's exclusive technical partner, we were entrusted with the technical implementation of this world premiere on the conference level of the museum as well as with the subsequent staging of the anniversary celebrations on the plaza in front of the building. A room-in-room concept had been designed for the "Mission X" presentation on the fourth floor of the museum, allowing around 100 guests in four sets of tiered seating to experience the prototype vehicle on a revolving platform in the centre of the set-up. High-resolution LED walls were installed at both ends to enable the best possible view of the content, which we showed using media servers. Our audio solutions ensured a perfect auditory experience while our lighting created an atmospheric setting for the premiere of the hypercar.

Planning for the anniversary show in front of the museum began exactly one year before the event itself: on 8th June 2022, we used time-lapse photography to capture the light conditions so that the event planners at Porsche could choose exactly the right time after sundown to start the show, thus guaranteeing ideal visibility for the projection onto the front of the museum. At the same time, we were also able to check what effect the street and factory lighting would have.

Setting up for the event itself began one-and-half weeks in advance. We based the whole set-up on a fibre-optic network and power infrastructure spanning all technical subsystems. We designed the signal routing to cross several streets as the various event and equipment locations extended throughout a number of buildings and parts of the factory site – and the roundabout in front of the Porsche Museum is part of the public traffic system, which meant that no direct cabling was allowed. The cable harnesses were routed both above ground and underground through utility shafts, with some signals also being transmitted via radio links. To protect our staff while working in moving traffic, this work was done during quiet periods or following temporary lane and road closures.

All audio, image, light and control signals converged in a central control room and an outside broadcast unit. This enabled us to manage the two shows with less equipment and fewer technicians although there was little time in-between.

Our Digital Media team was in charge of operations for the projection onto the glass facade of the Porsche Museum, which they realised using a dual Softedge and tandem projection from a distance of about 80 metres. This meant that the audience could see live images – including "on-board" pictures from the cockpits of the famous drivers – following the cars as they left the pit lane, passed the stage at the roundabout and finally reached the turning point.

A further highlight of the show was provided by the projection onto the facade, which seemed to bring the museum to life. Here an effect was created whereby the "talking" museum held a conversation with protagonists on the stage and in the stand. For this part of the show, we created a PA system with different localisation levels to once again provide the audience with an ideal auditory experience.

Photos: Porsche AG