ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2018
Strengthening Ties in the Asia-Pacific
March 16-18, 2018 marked the first-ever ASEAN Australia Special Summit. Leaders from ASEAN and Australia met to discuss vital issues affecting the Asia Pacific Region such as cybersecurity, counterterrorism and free trade.
Congress Rental Australia was chosen to support the large-scale event across multiple Sydney venues including ICC Sydney, Admiralty House and The Intercontinental Hotel Sydney. Several meetings and events took place over the two days, including The Leader’s Plenary, The Counter Terrorism Conference, The CEO Forum Roundtable and Lunch, and The Leader’s Retreat.
The Congress Rental team overcame several complex challenges, such as planning for the 24-hour lockdown that prevented all equipment from entering the ICC after the first meeting had commenced and running cables across multiple floors at the ICC. Congress Rental Australia utilised their own equipment, as well as equipment imported from Congress Rental Singapore and Congress Rental Germany, to produce a seamless, error-free event.
The Leader’s Plenary
The Leader’s Plenary was the heart of the ASEAN Australia Summit. The meeting was attended by the Leaders from over 10 different ASEAN countries, and Australian Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbull. This meeting gave the leaders a chance to discuss opportunities to work closer together on trade, economic development and counter-terrorism.
The Plenary was laid out in a circular shape, with the oval table in the middle hosting the main leaders of the Summit. Each leader at the oval table was given a Bosch Multimedia Microphone, which enabled them to listen to an interpretation audio feed based on their language preference.
The Leader’s Plenary was the heart of the ASEAN Australia Summit.
The other leaders were stationed at tables in rings around the outside of the oval table, with Bosch Integrus Receivers and headphones so they could receive the interpretation for their language of choice.
To work around the construction timeline of the plenary, the Congress Rental team had to install equipment on different days, running all the cabling under the false floor that was built for the meeting.
In a large room parallel to the main meeting, Congress Rental installed 10 three-person Audipack interpreter booths. Each interpreter spoke into a Bosch idesk that was connected to a Bosch Integrus System for language distribution to the appropriate channels. Languages interpreted were English, Bahasa Indonesian, Lao, Khmer, Thai and Vietnamese.
Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnball
Interpreters were also given a video feed of the current speaker on LCD screens placed in front of the interpreter booths. The video feed was captured via Bosch Dome Cameras that Congress Rental hung from the ceiling above the plenary. Each time one of the Leader’s activated their microphone to speak, one of the four 360-degree Bosch Dome Cameras would move to automatically focus on the speaker.
The Congress Rental team used Bosch hardware and software to provide audio and video feeds for ICC AV to distribute to five viewing and listening rooms across the ICC. The team set-up equipment to transmit the audio across the rooms and provided Bosch receivers for all delegates to listen to the meeting with interpretation. There were 500 headsets in total across the ICC for the Leader’s Plenary.
Interpreter Booths for the Leader’s Plenary
The Counter-Terrorism Conference was an interactive meeting held the day before the Leader’s Plenary. The conference gave members a chance to discuss tactics to combat the evolving threat to regional peace and security in the Asia-Pacific Region.
The speaker’s tables were constructed in a u-shaped configuration, with a wired Bosch Dicentis microphone installed for every speaker. Two 360- degree Bosch Dome cameras were built into the centrepiece to provide a visual display on the projector as they activated their microphones.
The Counter Terrorism Conference
Counter Terrorism Conference
Similar to the Leader’s Plenary, Congress Rental set up a room parallel to the conference for the simultaneous interpretation. Seven soundproof Audipack interpreter booths were installed, facing a projector screen that displayed the conference. Languages interpreted were English, Bahasa Indonesian, Lao, Khmer, Thai and Vietnamese.
The Bosch Dome cameras provided a HD video feed of each speaker so that the interpreters could read the speaker’s body language for accurate interpretation.
HD Bosch Dome Camera
Interpreter Booths for The Counter Terrorism Conference
Delegates were able to listen to the interpretation through their Bosch Dicentis microphone, selecting their language of choice through the in-built feature.
Video and language feeds of the conference were also distributed to ICC AV to provide a live feed of the session to the delegates sitting in the viewing and listening room next door. Delegates were given a Bosch Integrus receiver to listen to the interpretation.
The CEO Forum Roundtable & Lunch
The CEO Forum was a component of the ASEAN Australia Business Summit. Prominent business leaders were invited to join ASEAN members and Australian politicians to help strengthen the trade and investment links between ASEAN and Australia.
Congress Rental assisted in both the roundtable and lunch component of the Business Summit, supplying a range of equipment for both events inside the ICC.
Interpreters view from the booths.
At the CEO Forum Roundtable, delegates sat around a large hollow square table and utilised the Bosch conference microphones supplied by Congress Rental for their discussion.The CEO Forum Lunch invited CEO’s and politicians to sit together around cabaret-style tables for lunch. The delegation received speeches from both the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcom Turnbull and the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo.
Congress Rental set up one sound-proof Audipack booth at the back of the room for two Indonesian interpreters. Each delegate was given a Bosch headset to listen to the English interpretation of the President of Indonesia’s speech. Each receiver was preprogrammed by the Congress Rental team to match each delegates language preference.
Congress Rental also supplied interpreter audio feeds, and vision feeds via a Bosch HD Dome Camera to the media centre for media use.
The Leader’s Retreat was the final meeting for the Summit. It was a chance for the top Leader’s to discuss further issues without the media present.
The meeting took place at Admiralty House, a heritage building that was constructed over 150 years ago.
The Congress Rental team only had one day to install the necessary equipment, as it is the current residence of the Governor-General.
The Leader’s Retreat
The Leader’s Retreat
Three rooms were set up for the event; the meeting room for the leaders, the viewing room and the interpreter room. The Congress Rental team took the utmost care during bump-in and bump-out, ensuring the preservation of the historic furniture, paintings and structures.
The meeting room housed 24 of the top leaders from ASEAN and Australia. Each leader had a Bosch Dicentis wireless microphone with a Bosch headset to listen to their language preference.
Wireless microphones were chosen to avoid taping cables, as no tape was allowed in the building for preservation reasons.
Next door, seven interpreter booths were installed to support the interpretation for the event. Again, the interpreters were supplied with a visual of the meeting via a Bosch HD Dome camera to ensure accurate interpretation, and the Congress Rental team transmitted the language feeds accordingly.
Dome camera
Air-Conditioned Interpreter Booths
Due to the historic nature of the building, there is no air conditioning at the venue. This would have made interpreting very difficult for the interpreters, as it was one of the hottest days in March.
Fortunately, Congress Rental installed their new air conditioners into the booths to ensure the interpreters were comfortable and cool. This was the first time in the world that this had been done.
This vision and audio feed was also transmitted to the viewing room, where 30 of the top ASEAN and government officials watched the Leader’s meeting. They too had Bosch receivers programmed to their language of choice to understand the foreign leaders.
(The back-up venue)
To ensure that the Summit would continue no matter the circumstances, Congress Rental set up all conference equipment at a back-up venue at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney.
44 Bosch NG wired microphones were installed around a large hollow square table for the leaders to attend the meeting, if necessary. One 360-degree Bosch HD Dome camera was placed in the middle of the square to provide a video feed of the speaker to both the interpreters and the delegates in the viewing room.
The interpretation equipment and the equipment for the listening and viewing room were installed in a separate room, with a large drape partitioning the interpreters and the viewers.
Seven soundproof interpreter booths were installed, and all equipment necessary for running the event was operating for the entirety of the Summit. Eight monitors were also set up to provide a visual feed to the delegates if necessary.
The Back-Up Leader’s Plenary
The InterContinental Hotel
A Congress Rental team member was on-site throughout so that we would be prepared if the venue was needed. Although it was fully built and provisioned, the back-up venue was never called upon to be used.
"The efforts of Congress over the event weekend have not gone unnoticed and I have continually received nothing less than complete admiration and the highest appreciation for the way simultaneous interpretation services were managed and performance and quality of the attending Congress staff. I would personally like to congratulate Congress for another extremely successful engagement with PM&C. Well done and thank you all once again”
– Chris Jackson, ASEAN- Australia Special Taskforce