Aardvark Video was hired to record ConExpo 2023 footage at the LVCVA in Las Vegas for two days. We were tasked with grabbing B-Roll of booths inside the convention halls and equipment in the parking lots; Plus on the first day, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 PM capturing footage of a V.I.P. party at the LV Festival Grounds close to Sahara Avenue.
This blog will describe the process and how a video team, not only has to know how to record video but needs to plan thoroughly, be flexible, and adapt to changing situations.
The show was at the North, Central, South, and West Halls plus the Festival grounds, and all the parking lots. It was a huge show with over 3 million square feet of exhibits and over 139,000 attendees; and a tremendous amount of walking. On the first day, we covered 9 miles of steps, and almost 7 miles on the second day.
Our Plan
Initially, we were given 40 exhibitor booths, general B-Roll, and signage to record. To make it more complex, we were asked to record quite a few empty booths before the show started on both days which required early starts. We learned of booth needs the Friday before the show which started on Tuesday so on Saturday, three of us worked all day developing a flow chart of how it could be accomplished. This involved minimizing walking/time needed. Once into this, it became obvious that two camera crews would be needed and we got the extra technicians scheduled. Of course with extra crew, extra cost incurs and this put the project over budget. On Monday, we got a revision from the people in charge which dropped the needs down significantly.
How Did the First Day start?
An obstacle was parking; we couldn’t park in any of the LVCVA facilities: Diamond, Silver, Bronze, or Gold lots so we had to park in distant offsite lots and walk with equipment to the convention center.
Using our revised schedule we minimized the walking and began to visit the required booths starting with the North Hall. After filming the booths located there, we made our way to West Hall and the adjacent Diamond lot with a plan to move to the Festival Grounds next. While we were making our way to the West Hall it started to rain outside which made filming the booth located in the Diamond Parking Lot adjacent to West Hall difficult and with our next scheduled shoot at the Festival Grounds, going back to other halls just wasted more time. We had to wait till the rain let up and recorded West Hall B-roll in the interim.
The Long Walk
After capturing the booths and Diamond lot, we made our way while carrying equipment, to the Festival Grounds right across the street from the Sahara Hotel close to the Strat Tower. It was a very long walk!
We arrived at the festival grounds to see a huge array of massive towering cranes all around us. It was very impressive. We filmed B-Roll of the party prep while waiting for the V.I.P. party to start. The event was fun for all. The company hired a great live-entertainment band.
During the party, the sun went down and we were glad we had the latest Sony cameras that can basically record in the dark and got fantastic footage.
When the party ended, we had to walk from the festival grounds back to where one of our videographers parked on University Drive where we sorted equipment for the next day and drove the rest of the crew to their vehicles. Once back to the studio, the footage was loaded from memory sticks to a hard drive and then uploaded for Freeman’s editors that night. This was completed around 1:00 AM.
The Second Day
The second day had an early start and with a good bit of the footage shot in the parking lots and little rain, went quite a bit smoother. By the end of the day, we were able to upload the day’s footage and complete the project.
Summary
It was a lot of walking and a lot of planning to make it work. Our over 30 years of experience and ability to improvise helped us plan and make the project possible and we look forward to the next one.
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