Technical Design of WE Theatre at Shanghai Expo Museum

The Shanghai Expo Museum (hereinafter referred to as the “Expo Museum”) is one of the important legacies of the 2010 Shanghai Expo, a public cultural facility jointly built by the Shanghai Municipal Government and the International Exhibitions Bureau, and is one of the key cultural implementation projects of Shanghai’s 12th Five-Year Plan, overseen by the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and Television (Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage).

As the only official museum of the International Exhibitions Bureau, the Expo Museum will host major international conferences of the Bureau. Additionally, as a newly built public cultural facility in Shanghai and the first international museum, it will also host high-end forums and salons organized by relevant government departments. Furthermore, as a base for patriotic education, the museum will not only receive small performances from domestic and international art teams but will also collaborate with educational institutions to showcase student-created stage plays, science dramas, concerts, and other activities. In summary, the WE Theatre at the Expo Museum will be the core venue for various activities.

The WE Theatre is located on the first floor of the southern part of the Expo Museum, with 296 seats distributed across two levels: the first level includes a cloakroom, storage room, simultaneous interpretation room, audience area, stage area, backstage passage, and makeup room, totaling approximately 700 square meters; the second level is designed as a control room, integrating functions such as sound adjustment, lighting control, video projection, and control, covering about 100 square meters. Shanghai Huyue Stage Equipment Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Huyue) won the bid for the “Procurement and Installation Project of Stage Equipment for the Multifunctional Hall of the Shanghai Expo Museum” through public bidding, with the main systems including stage lighting and mechanical systems, stage sound systems, simultaneous interpretation systems, and video display systems.

1. Stage Lighting Mechanical System

The stage part of the multifunctional hall is divided into the main stage and two side stages. The stage opening dimensions are 15.5 meters (width) × 6.8 meters (height), with a depth of 6.4 meters. The stage height is 0.6 meters, with no mechanical systems below the stage.

Stage Machinery

The stage machinery system of the multifunctional hall is composed of customized stage machinery equipment from Shanghai Huyue, high-precision positioning light bridges that can be raised and lowered, and a supporting computer stage machinery control system.

The stage machinery uses a total of 10 stage lift bars and one hidden light lift bar. The specialized stage machinery equipment features a compact size and low requirements for steel structures, and provides five levels of protection including mechanical upper and lower limits, software upper and lower limits, and overall top protection, complying with the German DIN56950 safety standard; it is customized according to the actual architectural structure of the stage area and the technical requirements of the multifunctional hall.

The raised light bridge is a set of customizable suspended structures designed according to the decoration style and characteristics, with a large load capacity, which can also be used as a hidden maintenance passage, specifically customized for the multifunctional hall of the Expo Museum. The accompanying dual closed-loop axis controller integrates point positioning and computer stage machinery control system, featuring industrial computer redundancy design for reliability, stability, anti-interference capability, ergonomic application, automatic real-time data collection, and compliance with national safety standards, ensuring safety and practicality.

Stage Lighting

Based on the architectural layout and requirements of the multifunctional hall, Shanghai Huyue selected LED lighting fixtures with environmentally friendly and energy-saving characteristics. All LED stage lighting fixtures use internationally accepted 0-100ARM linear dimming technology, ensuring brightness, display performance, and color temperature can match the same functionality as high-power ordinary lighting fixtures, thus meeting the relevant standards for stage lighting in international conferences and general performance requirements during social education activities and exhibitions.

2. Stage Sound System

The stage sound system not only meets the amplification needs of various conferences and activities but also accommodates the amplification needs for performances and video presentations. The entire electroacoustic system’s acoustic design is carried out using EASE computer-aided design, and the design is also submitted to a design research institute for relevant electroacoustic design review, ensuring the sound meets musical quality and clarity for spoken language.

Main Amplification Speaker Group (LCR): Uses left, center, and right amplification modes, with speakers hidden in the speaker bridge above the stage front, ensuring even sound coverage across the audience area, achieving high-quality sound reproduction while accommodating a multi-purpose amplification system.

Surround Speakers: To ensure good stereo sound for different listening positions, 8 surround speakers are configured on the left, right, and rear sides of the audience area, ensuring clarity in the rear and even sound pressure levels between the front and rear.

Subwoofer: Two 15-inch subwoofers are placed on the stage floor for performances, enriching the mid-bass components of the music and providing a sense of impact.

Stage Lip Fill Speakers: Four fill speakers are placed at the stage lip to provide excellent sound effects for the front audience area and lower the central channel sound image position. The stage lip fill speakers use compact speakers for easy hidden installation.

Stage Monitoring Speakers: To accommodate different performance needs, four mobile monitoring speakers are configured in the stage performance area, providing a good sound field and effects. Speaker monitoring junction boxes are set up under the stage front and around the perimeter for easy wiring, allowing for flexible placement on stage.

Control Room Monitoring Speakers: The reproduction effect of the monitoring speakers in the control room directly affects the sound engineer’s accurate assessment of sound for appropriate adjustments. This plan selects a source monitoring speaker with accurate sound positioning, flat frequency response, and the ability to unify control room sound with external sound.

Mixing Console Control System: The mixing console is the control core of the entire system, and its sound quality, performance, and reliability are crucial for the operation of the entire amplification system.

To meet high stability and reliability requirements, while considering the actual use of the multifunctional hall and the current habits of domestic operators (sound engineers), the system is equipped with a digital mixing console control.

Computer multitrack recording units are selected to match the digital mixing console system for voice track collection and post-processing during meetings and activities.

Digital Audio Processing System: The digital audio processor is mainly responsible for system routing and switching between various operational modes, as well as controlling signal gain, limiting, delay, equalization, and crossover processing.

This design includes one digital speaker manager and one wall control panel.

Audio Sources: In the audio source section, we comprehensively consider practical application issues, using 4 sets of wireless handheld microphones and 4 sets of wireless headsets, suitable for speeches during meetings, lectures, or audience interactions, along with 8 gooseneck conference microphones to meet general domestic conference discussion requirements and one dual CD professional player to satisfy music playback needs in the multifunctional hall.

Central Control System: This subsystem’s main function is to conveniently and in real-time control various environmental electrical devices at any stage before, during, or after a meeting without affecting the normal proceedings. In a conference room, there are often multiple functions that need to be controlled, such as lighting, temperature, television, and sound systems. The central control system can fulfill all control requirements through a touch screen. By using a dedicated control panel—LCD touch screen or button panel—one can complete the functions of all electronic devices. A simple press can change the environment, such as setting lighting and temperature, switching audio and video signals, adjusting volume and channels, as well as raising and lowering screens and opening and closing curtains. It can also perfectly integrate with the digital conference system, controlling the switches of the speaking units and the rotation of cameras from the touch screen.

3. Simultaneous Interpretation System

As an international museum, the multifunctional hall undertakes significant tasks for international conferences and large forums and salons at the Expo Museum. Therefore, the TAIDEN digital conference system and infrared wireless simultaneous interpretation system are selected for use.

The digital infrared language distribution system uses a transmission frequency of 2-8M, avoiding interference from high-frequency driving light sources, achieving perfect sound quality with a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz with low distortion;

The digital infrared wireless microphone, using TAIDEN’s proprietary dirATC digital infrared audio transmission and control technology, combined with broadcast-grade microphones, can achieve perfect sound quality with a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz with low distortion. It has four built-in sound effect modes: normal/conference/press conference/theater;

The simultaneous interpretation system utilizes a local area network, greatly exceeding the control distance of traditional RS-232 protocols, enabling remote control, remote diagnostics, and remote upgrades of the conference system. All conference devices use TCP/IP protocols, such as conference hosts and voting hosts, making the system very flexible for additions or removals, and the failure of one device does not affect others.

The entire multifunctional hall is equipped with one digital infrared conference host that also supports 8-channel simultaneous interpretation, allowing for 8 languages for simultaneous translation; four infrared radiation units are installed on the left and right walls to ensure infrared signal coverage throughout the venue; equipped with 300 seats with 8-channel infrared receivers, which have LCD large screen display functions showing language channels, language names, battery levels, signal strength, and other information, achieving sound quality of 20-20KHz; equipped with 20 wired digital conference microphones and 10 digital infrared wireless microphones, which have conference discussion and simultaneous interpretation functions; the system supports hot-swapping of devices and voting units during the conference process, with the computer receiving real-time information about the device and immediately activating it without needing to restart the system, thus preventing data loss.

4. Video Display System

The multimedia playback, broadcasting, and video display system we designed consists of input devices, control devices, and projection devices.

1. Input Unit

It uses highly sensitive professional cameras, camcorders, and fixed HD remote control cameras. Both photography and video input utilize a fully wireless system, allowing the 4K camera footage to be wirelessly input to control devices without cumbersome cabling, and camera placement is unrestricted, making it more suitable for interactive live environments and other areas inside and outside the museum. For events, lectures, and meetings, it can capture the entire scene or perform close-up shots of specific items and individuals, ensuring clear images, accurate exposure, and good color reproduction without flash requirements during indoor meetings and activities.

2. Control Devices

Using a multi-window presentation system and HD live broadcasting station. Through control devices, the input audio and video are processed and sent to different display devices, meeting the needs for wireless operation of multimedia content by presenters during international conferences, high-quality course recordings for social education lectures, and online broadcasting.

The multi-window presentation system is a new intelligent interactive system that offers a new way of presenting, facilitating more effective communication, discussion, and engaging the audience; it also allows for quicker and simpler analysis and understanding of data information. This system is used in the multifunctional hall of the Expo Museum for lectures and international conferences, effectively showcasing the quality of 4K large screens and allowing for intuitive and straightforward big data analysis, processing large amounts of information content.

The live program switcher serves as a high-definition platform for signal acquisition, encoding formats, recording, editing, and storage applications throughout the entire process, achieving broadcast-level standards in terms of image quality, audio quality, operation methods, and production processes. The switcher adopts an integrated design, equipped with high-resolution dual touch screens, allowing users to switch teaching scenes and control images with just a tap. It also includes functions such as recording, broadcasting, subtitles, and special effects. Users can simultaneously assign various video sources, computer files, videos, photos, PPT slides, and web pages to the screen using the multi-window presentation system. Presenters can easily see all content. By simply dragging and dropping, they can easily place the required content onto the main display screen or projector. Users can also switch presentation content at any time based on their agenda and presentation needs. In this way, the multi-window presentation system not only makes presentation operations more convenient, attractive, and easy to understand but also enhances interaction and communication effectiveness during speeches.

3. Display Devices

Including 4K digital projectors, LCD televisions, and LED full-color screens, these not only meet the requirements for international conference usage but also provide video playback and information display functions for museum-related social education activities.

Projector

The display screen requirements for the multifunctional hall are a width of 12 meters and a height of 6.4 meters, with clear high brightness. Based on the installation environment and the size of the projection screen, we have selected the Sony SRX-R515P 4K digital projector, which has a high lumen count of 15000, providing true 4K projection that meets DCI specifications, with a resolution four times that of 2K and HD. The F2.5 large aperture lens is made of ELD (extra-low dispersion) glass, allowing for ultra-fine pitch 4K images, with a contrast ratio of up to 8000:1, providing more realistic images in dark environments. It features 6 high-pressure mercury lamps for high-quality brightness and greater durability. If one lamp goes out, the system can continue operating with the remaining lamps. Lamp replacement is simple and safe, and the lower lamp replacement costs reduce overall operating costs. It has a 15-inch oversized graphical user interface (GUI) that is consistent with the Sony Theater Management System, allowing operators to set the projector, manage content, and create complete program schedules. Additionally, the system supports remote control using iPads and Android tablets.

Screen

We refer to the HARKNESS Customization brand professional theater screen, with specifications of 14 meters × 6 meters. At the same time, two mobile 65-inch LCD televisions are equipped, which can be placed on both sides of the stage to present more content to the audience or placed under the stage to display relevant information to the meeting host. The entire system, combined with the internal network of the Expo Museum, can be transmitted in real-time to any location that requires it and can achieve remote meetings and online teaching functions through extended devices. The internal network system can push speaker expressions and gestures, close-ups of displayed items, and real-time multilingual subtitles to guests’ mobile phones, creating a multifaceted lecture activity experience.

Shanghai Huyue not only participated in the construction of the WE Theatre at the Expo Museum but also provides comprehensive technical support services to ensure the safe and efficient operation of performance venues. Since its acceptance and use on September 28, 2017, the Expo Museum has hosted hundreds of cultural and technological activities, receiving recognition and affirmation from leaders of government departments such as the Shanghai Municipal Propaganda Department and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, significantly promoting Shanghai’s cultural, technological, and educational sectors.

Company Profile:

Shanghai Huyue was established in 1981, focusing on consulting design, system integration, and project construction for performance venues. The company has set up three major business groups: Huyue Stage, Huyue Technology, and Huyue Culture, with six main business areas: theater intelligence, performance planning, cultural tourism and entertainment, film and television content, derivative development, and value-added operations. It possesses top professional qualifications in the industry and strong system integration capabilities. The Huyue Cultural Industry Park, invested and constructed by the company, covers an area of 10,000 square meters and is now the application base for the Digital Stage Design and Service Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The company’s service center has achieved a rapid response system with a 10-minute response time and 1-hour arrival time in downtown Shanghai, establishing a nationwide technical operation and pre-sale and after-sale service network.

Submitted by Shanghai Huyue

Compiled by the Association’s Comprehensive Department