Light and sound spectacle at the Roche Tower in Basel

 Four nights, three marriage proposals, 45 projectors, 1,690,000 Ansi lumens of light and a show that celebrates life!

The pharmaceutical company Roche came up with something special for its 125th anniversary celebration: Every evening from 28 September to 1 October 2021, Roche Tower 1 in Basel was transformed into a unique art installation. Thanks to 45 high-performance projectors from Panasonic, it was possible to use the projection surface of 10,000 m2 from a distance of more than 300m over the Rhine. With this celebration, Roche gave thanks to the people, the city of Basel and more.

“The PT-RQ50 is perfectly suited for projection in this dimension. We were all impressed by the excellent colour rendering,” says Manuel Schärer, Head of Events at auviso.

Thanks to the use of separate red and blue SOLID SHINE laser/phosphor light sources, the RQ50K offers particularly high-quality colour reproduction, and the resulting vivid and appealing images delight audiences.

A single PT-RQ50K offers the same potential as multiple lower brightness projectors, reducing the time required for installation and set-up, saving costs.

The PT-RQ50K is the world's lightest and most compact 3-chip DLP laser projector with 50,000 lumens and razor-sharp native 4K resolution (4,096 x 2,160). It offers completely new possibilities when it comes to implementing gigantic projections that immerse visitors to live events in another world.

Manuel Schärer continues: “The dimension and above all the importance of this project was unique. We knew from the beginning that we needed projectors that we could rely on 100%.” One projector was intended as a reserve, but it did not get used at all. In addition to two laser modules and spare video inputs, the PT-RQ50 also features a redundant power supply for absolutely reliable operation.

A spectacle like no other before

Nick Sommer, Head of Video at Auviso, is impressed by the PT-RQ50: “The native 4K resolution and brightness are ideal for projections of this size. We were very lucky that this model was available in such a large number in Europe. Thanks to the 50,000 lumens, we needed fewer devices per stack than competing products. This made a stack of seven possible, instead of a stack of eight or even nine. On the one hand, this took up less space, on the other hand we were able to save time during assembly and especially during adjustment.”

The logistics were another challenge, as the projection took place from a distance of 300m across the Rhine. For the projectors, 11 containers and other custom-made products had to be set up at three locations. These three locations finally had to be synchronized, which was implemented by a 5-km fibre optic cable. In addition, it needed two containers for the control room and the material storage. 26 trucks were needed to transport all the material, as well as a crane for the assembly and dismantling.

Manuel Schärer concludes: “For this project, we needed 50 specialists who worked a total of 3,000 hours. We are proud that we were able to successfully implement this celebration.”