Oculus Connect 5 | San Jose, CA
September 26-27, 2018
Held in the always-bustling San Jose Convention Center (SJCC), Oculus Connect 5 gathered the industry’s most visionary developers and creators to celebrate the VR journey thus far, and catch more than a glimpse of what lies on the horizon.
In the keynote hall, demo areas and breakout sessions, the “tech” part of FNTECH was on full display:
As you can imagine, the VR event of the year connects people both literally and virtually. To accommodate the massive networking demands, our team provided an extremely robust networking system that supported almost 3,000 concurrent users on more than 4,000 unique devices, all with a 100% 5GHz connection. The OC5 community and production team downloaded more than 10TB of info and uploaded about 5.5TB. That’s a whole lot of 1’s and 0’s!
To ensure the messaging came across loud and clear in every space, the audio team installed 164 speakers, 100 comm drops, and 100 channels of RF microphones/wireless devices throughout the SJCC. (The keynote hall alone pushed more than 192,000 watts of power!)
Speaking of the keynote, the video team wrangled 11 simultaneous cameras, 19 enormous ROE 3.1mm pixel pitch LED screens with image processing driven by the latest Brompton Tessera SX40, 4K processors and all screens were rigged to fly. The combined number of onscreen pixels totaled a whopping 26,763,264 and the fiber optic cable stretched 4,132 linear feet, or to put it into perspective, about the length of 11 ½ football fields.
With more than 4,000 registered attendees all focused on absorbing as much info as possible in a short amount of time, food breaks had to be energizing, tasty and fast. To meet these mandatories, our catering team provided fully-stocked snack stations in key locations around the SJCC, created an uber-efficient hot buffet area that processed hundreds of lunches in seconds, and offered deli-style boxed lunches for those who just wanted to grab something light and go to a session or outdoor terrace. In addition, 900 gallons of coffee, almost 7,000 energy drinks, more than 9,000 cups of fresh juice and Frappuccinos, and dozens of eco-friendly filtered water stations kept the group hydrated and happy throughout the day.
In the evenings, several parties provided attendee entertainment, and once again, Oculus hosted a grand multi-player gaming night, this year the VR League Onward Grand Finals. Changing the hall from keynote set-up to a 10-player VR game and back to keynotes for Day 2 was no small feat. For the competition, new staging, video programming, synchronized lighting, broadcast announcers, specialty catering, robotic cameras, etc. all combined to help the audience feel immersed IN the tournament, rather than mere observers.
On the logistics front, OC5 boasted some impressive numbers as well: 4 separate docks, with more than 100 semi-trucks, vans and bobtails hauling over 1.2 million pounds of freight in and out of the convention center. If you’ve ever watched time-lapse video of a large beehive being constructed, you’ll understand the perfect organization and synchronicity needed to pull this off.
And finally, to make it all happen seamlessly required the best, most talented group of event professionals in the world: 144 producers, crew and staff; more than 250 local tradesmen and women; and 153 vendors and providers to be exact. Whew!
All in all, Oculus Connect 5 was a technological triumph FNTECH was honored to be a part of … and we’re already thinking about how to top it next year!
