P23 AV Magazine May 2015
The general resurgence in economic activity in France may offer more business for pro-AV in every vertical, says Adrian Pennington. http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/551a03a6#/551a03a6/1
While the crisis in the Eurozone has hit the country hard, the market is recovering and there are opportunities for refurbishment, especially in the wake of the Euro 2016 football championship.
“The economic climate should not be underestimated,” warns Bettina Berk, sales manager West and Southern Europe, Adder. “Financially, the country is volatile and infrastructure developments are being restricted to all but the very essential. There have been suggestions that the Banque de France (Central Bank) is set to launch an anti-deflation programme and the tactics that come out of this programme will be very decisive.
“However, during times of uncertainty, no project can be guaranteed,” she continues. “The most important step for businesses in this sector is to invest time with customers, and understand that their requirements in terms of costs and deliverables may change.”
Compared to other technology segments, the French AV market remains buoyant, reckons Gwenaelle Villette, business development manager, Peer- less-AV Europe. “Large projects are always prone to delays and changes, but overall our business in France is doubling year on year,” she reports.
Crestron reports growth in the last few months, especially in the corporate market. “In spite of complex economic conditions, some international organisations and CAC40 companies (French equivalent to the FTSE 100) are investing in AV equipment for reasons of renovation, relocation or even extension,” says marketing executive, Noémie Boullot. “The technical evolution of digital standards and resolutions like 4K are prompting companies to upgrade their systems.”
The view from illuminated balloon specialist AEN (Airstar European Network), which has its HQ in Paris, is that clients expect more gear for a similar or lower budget.
“More and more projects seem to be decided at the last minute, which is putting acute pressure on service providers,” says director, David Mohen. “The number of event/communications agencies diminished over the last couple of years, so many intermediates (middle men) have been cut off. As a result, manufacturers increasingly have to deal with the end user directly but they often don’t have the same expertise or knowledge of challenges and technical requirements.”
DOOH growth
According to the Digital Signage Business Climate Index (Jan-Feb 2015, Invidis Consulting, in cooperation with OVAB Europe and Club du Digital Media), France ranks third in Europe for digital signage growth. The report forecasts favourable conditions within the next six months with job creation and higher customer demand leading to more projects being realised and an increasing expansion in vertical markets.
BroadSign’s France-based sales director EMEA, Vladimir Aubin recognises the country’s growing market for digital signage, yet one that’s less mature than the UK and Germany. As a result, France has a “unique opportunity to adopt and execute new solutions.”
He elaborates: “Interactivity, automated audience measurement and programmatic media buying will be available in upcoming French installations, whereas UK and Germany AV will either need to wait for contract renewal or convert to more robust software platforms before attaining these new heights of services.”
Business tends to slow down the months prior to presidential elections planned for 2017. “That said, elections also bring about advertising opportunities which is great for ad-based digital signage networks,” says Aubin.
Audience measurement company Mediametrie revealed (in its Mediamath Thematik report) that there are 29.5 million IPTV users in France, or 44 per cent of the population. For Colin Farquhar, ceo of IPTV solutions provider Exterity these figures demonstrate that the domestic market is “far more mature” than in Germany where cable and satellite dominates and in the UK which has a mix of cable, IPTV and satellite.
Exterity, which recently partnered with distribution specialist Sidev Display Systems, also sees potential in the local education market. French authorities aim to create a single elite higher education structure which will encompass 19 of the most respected institutions in the country. It is being designed to compete with global giants like Harvard or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“This mega-university will have its own requirements for internet and wi-fi connectivity, as well as pro-AV,” suggests Farquhar. “Professional IPTV enables faculty members to access scheduled and recorded programming from all over the world or create subject specific streams of content interspersed with student announcements or messages.”
Euro 2016
The prospect of hosting Euro 2016 has led to an ambitious construction and renovation programme for stadiums in 10 cities; Bordeaux, Lens, Toulouse, St-Etienne and Marseille among them. It will be the third time France has hosted the tournament, after the inaugural one in 1960, and then 1984. It also hosted the 1998 World Cup.
Call for tenders are currently underway but some firms are already involved. Crestron has installed lighting controls in meeting rooms and public spaces at Le stade de France and at VIP rooms at Le Parc des Princes.
“A number of hotels are renovating to welcome guests during the event and Crestron is directly involved in the control of meeting rooms, guest rooms and common spaces,” says Boullot. Crestron partnered with Accor for upgrades to luxury hotel Le Sofitel Arc de Triomphe including controls for lighting and background music.
Tourism accounts for one third of GDP in Paris alone, a figure set to increase during the tournament with seven million fans due to flood the country. “It will be crucial for ven- ues and stadia to leverage the latest pro-AV trends to offer immersive entertainment to visitors as part of the Respect for Fan Culture initiative taking place during the tournament,” says Farquhar.
A larger number of the games will be watched from fan zones, bars and restaurants, hotel rooms or even airport and railway station lobbies. The tournament will impact all travel- related verticals such as museums, transport, hospitality and, to a lesser extent, retail.
“Euro 2016 will bring many inaugurations and events in stadiums inject- ing some dynamism into this area,” says Mohen.
Outside the Euro, AirStar also reports growth in summer festivals where attendance rose from two million in 2012 to 2.7 million in 2014. It is involved in festivals such as Rock en Seine, Les Vieilles Charrues, Solidays and Musilac.
“Smaller festivals are also taking more and more interest in our solutions, to answer various lighting needs such as security, traffic and animation as well as signage,” says Mohen. “The fact that we offer green alternative solutions to lighting is also an advantage, for example with the We Love Green Festival (Neuilly, 30-31 May), a neutral carbon footprint festival.”
Innovation and ambition
France has a reputation for belligerent trade unions and archaic work-to-rule attitudes yet the country has more business start-ups than anywhere else in Europe, according to trade commission Ubifrance - and the greatest number of fast-growing tech firms in Europe, according to Deloitte.
Cityzen Sciences produces a tee- shirt with a sensor that tracks the heartbeat; SlowControl has devised a smart baby bottle that measures the amount of milk an infant consumes.
“France is one of the most important countries in Europe for virtual and augmented reality,” confirms Gerben Van den Berg, Barco’s sales v-p corporate. The CIRV industrial VR centre in Montoir deployed the first Barco Hybrid cave in Europe.
Last year, the French telco industry launched Club France which aims to offer 5G throughout the country in the next few years. The initiative is backed by Alcatel-Lucent, Orange and Thales, mobile chip maker Sequans Communications, and base station connectivity outfit, eBlink. Since France owns territories on every continent (from Guadeloupe and Martinique to Mauritius, New Caledonia, St Pierre et Miquelon/ Canada and French Polynesia) and a fair number of big organisations have regional offices located there, the initiative offers significant potential to the whole pro-AV sector by facilitating video distribution over far greater band- width and broadband speeds.
Gay paris to Grand paris
The largest current construction pro- ject is Grand Paris in which €30 billion will be invested over the next 15 years to improve infrastructure and transport. This government-led development for the whole of the Paris metropolitan area is designed to improve residents’ quality of life, address regional inequalities and build a sustainable city.
At the heart of the scheme is an ambitious plan to modernise the existing transport network and create a new automatic metro – the Grand Paris Express. By 2030, 205km of automatic metro lines will have been built; 72 new stations will connect the Grand Paris clusters with three airports and TGV stations and 2 million passengers will travel on the new network daily.
One
of the oldest and most famous light festivals occurs in Lyon over
four nights in December. A highlight of the 2014 edition may have
been the display at the Place des Terreaux where masterpieces from
the Museum of Fine Arts were illuminated on the building’s facades.
Artistic director Gilbert Coudène, designer Etienne Guiol, video
mapping expert Theoriz, producer Light Event Consulting and staging
company Spectaculaires worked with 11 Barco HDF-W26 projectors to
bring the artwork to life.
Mall
design
Commercial
property group Unibail- Rodamco has installed striking LED displays
in its malls, including les Quatre Temps mall in Paris. Comprising
1,527 Barco C7 LED tiles, it is one of the biggest in Europe,
designed by movingdesign France and powered by Barco’s DX700 image
processing unit.
AirStar
deployed 30 lighting balloons of various shapes, sizes and colours
for the Val d’Isère AirStar Night Light (pictured above).
HQ
for SFR
The
new telco SFR HQ is an ambitious building project being carried out
in two phases. While the first employees moved into the new building
in Saint- Denis in November 2013, the rest of the campus is set to
open this year
so
90 per cent of the SFR team can work together under one roof. SFR
contracted AtelierAudiovisuel which chose to equip the campus with a
variety of Barco projectors and a Barco video wall. Crestron
solutions equip the auditorium, boardroom, crisis rooms and 150
meeting rooms.
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