The largest video mapping event in Europe has taken place in Madrid, Spain in the city’s Plaza Mayor, a square at the centre of old Madrid which is celebrating the 400th anniversary of its completion in 1619. From 15 to 17 February, the Plaza Mayor witnessed an 18-minute immersive projection show, which took more than 24,000 members of the public on an audovisual journey through the history of the square.

The special programme created to commemorate the 400th anniversary was taking place for the second time – it was first held two years ago and won the first prize for best cultural event at the BEA World (Best Event Awards) 2017 and was a joint winner of a 360° audiovisual imagery prize at the Visual Artist Awards 2018.

As part of the programme, the four facades of the square were projected onto simultaneously, producing a comprehensive 360° mapping covering 5,200 sq m. Technical direction and equipment supply was the responsibility of G-AV Technologies – a Madrid-based global provider of a full range of turnkey sound, light and video solutions. To enable the 4K video projection, G-AV installed 24 Panasonic projectors (20 RZ31 with 31,000-lumen brightness and 4 RQ22 of 20,000 lumens). These enabled video display on facades measuring 124 × 90 metres with a resolution of 34,400 × 1,200 pixels. The total light output was 664,000 lumens over the 5,200 sq m projection canvas.

To manage this massive infrastructure, G-AV used two disguise media servers, a 2×4pro and 4×4pro, a Lightware 4x2 matrix and 24 HDMI-4K multifunctional interfaces, with a fibre-optic network responsible for the transport of the signals.

Video mapping design was by Óscar Testón, director of Otu Cinema and creator of Vjspain. The music was commissioned from composer Ruben Kielmannsegge.