SLALOM R4

About This Guide

This event uses one continuous scenic picture built from three LED walls and two projection-mapped columns, tied together by a single media-server canvas. Because the surfaces have different sizes, technologies, and viewing characteristics, content that looks great on one destination can fail on another. This guide gives you the exact pixel dimensions for every destination, the full-canvas map, and the technical specs for slides, video, and still artwork.

Following these guidelines ensures your content looks its best on show day — and saves us all from last-minute scrambles over resolutions, file formats, or fonts. If anything here raises a question, please reach out early: cbaldini@avfactory.com

Overview & Quick Reference

The Full Canvas

The canvas runs from the outside edge of the Stage Left LED wall to the outside edge of the Stage Right LED wall, including the physical gaps (mullions) between surfaces. It is built at LED-native pixel density (1 px = 2.604 mm), so LED content maps 1:1 with zero scaling. Content that animates across the whole stage — walk-in looks, transitions, environmental textures — should be designed on this canvas (an After Effects comp at 17502 × 1873 with each destination as its own region) so motion travels believably across walls, columns, and the gaps between them. But note: the canvas is a design space, not a deliverable — final renders are exported per destination and sync-rolled at playback. See Full Motion Video.

Canvas Coordinates

Column widths reflect the field-measured 12'-6" circumference (466 canvas px). For content, the numbers that matter are the 1053 px projection zones — columns and mullions are no-content reference.

Pixel Maps by Destination

Stage Left & Stage Right LED Walls — 3456 × 1728

Center LED Wall — 5184 × 1728

Stage Column Projection — 1080 × 1920 portrait (×2)

Entry Column Projection — 1080 × 1920 portrait (×1)

Column Content — Read This First

The columns are round — two 5-foot-wide cylinders flanking the center wall and one wider 6'-4⅜" cylinder at the entry way — lit by projectors, not flat LED. Light hits the center of each column head-on and grazes the sides at an extreme angle, which means focus, brightness, and geometry all fall off rapidly away from the centerline. Content designed like normal screen graphics will look smeared and dim. Content designed like environmental scenery will look fantastic.

Zones by Column (in your 1080 × 1920 file)

The hero zone is the same fraction of the column on both (the sharpness limit is set by surface curvature, which scales with width) — the entry column simply gives you a bigger one.

Minimum Sizes (in your 1080 × 1920 file — all columns)

Minimums are set by viewing distance, not column width — they apply unchanged on the entry column. The wider hero zone buys you room for bigger art, not smaller text.

PowerPoint / Slide Decks

Slides display full-bleed on the LED walls, so decks must be authored at the wall's aspect ratio — a standard 16:9 deck does not fit a 2:1 or 3:1 wall. You'll build two deck formats: one for the side walls, one for the center wall. Slides never play on the columns.

To set the size: Design → Slide Size → Custom Slide Size, enter the width and height above, and choose "Ensure Fit" if converting an existing deck. Both formats work out to the same scale (172.8 px per slide-inch), so artwork moves cleanly between them.

Deck Guidelines

Full Motion Video

Render Sizes — One File per Destination

Do not deliver a single 17,502-px-wide render. Design in your full-canvas AE comp, then export each destination as its own file. We load them as a synchronized set in Pixera and roll them together frame-locked, so the full-stage picture reassembles perfectly on site.

Stand-Alone Videos via PlayBack Pro — 1920 × 1080

Speaker-support videos, sizzle reels, and other stand-alone 16:9 pieces roll from PlayBack Pro rather than the media server, and appear in a centered 16:9 window on the LED walls (the same treatment as a 16:9 slide deck). These follow the classic spec:

Audio: Stingers, Cues & Music

Still Images & Event Logos

File Naming, Versions & Delivery

Frequently Asked Questions

Why not 24 fps? It's cinematic!

The entire video system runs at 59.94 Hz. A 23.98/24 fps file forces a 3:2 pulldown at playback, which shows up as stutter on camera moves — painfully visible on a 44-foot LED wall. Shoot however you like; render at 29.97 or 59.94.

Can I just deliver one big full-canvas video for everything?

No — please don't. Design at full canvas in your AE comp so everything lines up, then export each destination as its own file (same duration, frame rate, and start frame). We roll them as a frame-locked sync set in Pixera, which keeps every surface pixel-accurate and lets us cue surfaces independently.

What goes in the mullions — the gaps between screens?

Nothing is displayed there; it's physical negative space. In full-canvas content, treat mullions as real gaps: let imagery pass through them naturally. Don't place anything that must be seen in those pixel ranges, and don't "squeeze" artwork to skip over them.

Why are the columns so restricted?

They're cylinders. Only about the middle third of each column faces the audience squarely; the rest curves away, stretching and dimming whatever lands on it. Big, bold, slow content genuinely looks stunning there — fine detail genuinely looks broken. We're saving you from re-doing it.

Can I submit other codecs or formats?

Quite possibly yes — but ask first (cbaldini@avfactory.com) so we can confirm smooth playback before you render a show's worth of finished animation.

Do my slides really need custom sizes?

Yes — the walls are 2:1 and 3:1, and slides show full-bleed. A 16:9 deck can be displayed in a window as a fallback, but custom-size decks are what make this rig look like a million bucks.

Document Revisions