AV Technician at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge
End Client: Deutsche Bank | Technical Provider: Blue-i Event Technology
Frieze London is a prestigious contemporary art fair held annually in October at Regent’s Park, bringing together the international art community for a glamorous showcase of modern and contemporary works. This is my third year doing this job and it is completely different to everything I do throughout the year. *It is arguably one of my most enjoyable jobs I do in the year.
The job description is kind of a blurred mixed role, from ensuring the correct visual content is loaded on sponsor screens, to room audio being at the perfect volume for the changing atmosphere to a spontaneous artist presentation, ensuring we react quickly to their schedule and are heard clearly throughout the event space in the space of a few minutes of entering the room.
Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge has two lounges, one at Masters which my good friend Mark looks after and London which I look after, both play host to Deutsche Bank’s most valued clients.Deutsche Bank is the main sponsor and Global Lead Partner of Frieze London, having supported the fair for over 20 years and I am truly privileged to listen to, see and make louder artists, curators and genuinely interested in people from across the world.
This year was great working with the same faces from the Production Company we’re working for Signal Communications, seeing the same faces from Deutsche Bank and the same bar staff serving me coffee and nice ginger shots first thing in the morning. Over the years I’ve managed to acquire a pass from the lounges art curator that gives me the opportunity to see the arts fair, an opportunity to which I’m truly grateful for.
The event can be very spontaneous, so being on the ball is an absolute requirement for this; but being hands-on to help with room changes and helping with the USB chargers is not working becomes a part of the job.
Every year I use this opportunity to brush up on my skills of video switchers and this year in particular LED wall processing and configuration. At Frieze, we are blessed with ‘time’ as we get in earlier as the artwork loads after us, and we are unable to do heavy work, so I use this time to really get to know the gear.