Novotel Auckland Ellerslie: bringing three convention rooms up to standard

Project snapshot

• Client: Novotel Auckland Ellerslie
• Location: Ellerslie, Auckland
• Sector: Hotel conference and events
• Scope: Upgrade of the three main convention rooms, with new control, presentation switching and room-combine

The venue

Novotel Auckland Ellerslie runs a busy conference and events operation with three main convention rooms that can be used separately or opened up into larger spaces. The existing AV had reached the point where it was getting in the way of the events team rather than helping them.

What wasn't working

The list the hotel gave us will be familiar to anyone who has run events in an older venue:

• Presenters had to adjust laptop resolution and settings to get a usable image on the projector screens.
• The projector, video switcher and cabling were older technology, limiting what could be delivered for presentations.
• There was no way to stream wirelessly to the projectors, and no direct HDMI inputs.
• Video switching was controlled from the AV room, which was inconvenient when several events ran at once.
• There was no convenient way to plug a laptop or tablet's audio into the room, and no easy way to operate the individual wireless microphones.
• Three screens across the rooms, two the same size and one larger, all had to be handled consistently.

Underneath all of it sat a commercial problem. Because the in-house system could not cover what clients asked for, the hotel was sub-hiring AV equipment for a large share of its events, and paying for it every time.

The brief

Bring all three rooms up to a new standard, make the system simple and easy to use, cater for many different types of events, provide the ability to combine rooms, and cut the reliance on hired-in equipment.

What we delivered

The upgrade was built around a Kramer control system with a wall panel in each room, so the events team controls sources, displays and microphones where the event is happening rather than from the AV room. New projection and switching replaced the older equipment, direct laptop and tablet connections replaced the old adaptor chain, and the wireless microphones were brought under the same simple control.

Room-combine was the other half of the job. Each of the three rooms can run as its own event, or two or three can be combined so a single presenter's audio and video carry across the whole space when the walls are opened.

The result

The hotel now covers the great majority of its events with its own system instead of hiring equipment in. That change alone meant the upgrade paid for itself very quickly, and the events team gained a system they can operate from a wall panel without calling a technician.

Our role

Design and installation of the audio visual system and user control for events, including the room-combine capability. We continue to support the hotel's system, so a fault in a room is a phone call and a visit rather than a lost event.

Hotel or conference venue?

Events staff should not need to be AV technicians, and a venue should not be paying to hire in what it could own. We design conference room systems that presenters can plug into and staff can run from a wall panel. See our AV installation service, or get in touch to talk through your rooms.