AV Magazine
The geography of this continental scale island nation, a cultural zest for technology and a fading mining boom defines AV in Oz
One of the largest countries in the world it may be but Australia’s biggest issue is that 85 per cent of its 24 million population live within seven major cities all separated by plane rides.
“The most significant challenge is the distance and not having the ability to enjoy the level of face-to-face interaction with our customer base we are accustomed to in the US or Europe,” says Bob Michaels, ceo at video distribution gear maker, ZeeVee.
“Australia’s location means there’s limited opportunity to get involved in international opportunities,” agrees Geraldine Shine, general manager at production and staging specialist, Technical Direction Company (TDC).
Logistics are a big challenge. It takes a week to ship product to Perth from Sydney 3,300 kilometres away on the west coast. Being an island adds additional constraints on imports.
“The distance between cities makes quite a dramatic difference in the ability to sell AV product since it’s hard to move products around. Plus, with a limited electronics manufacturing base, the import cost is higher than in most countries,” says Travis Anderson, country manager Australia and New Zealand, Exterity.
Russell Bennett, a Brisbane-based live event and AV business consultant points to Australia’s invention of the first black box flight recorder in 1953, and Wi-Fi developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in 1996. “While our vastness and scant population have been our biggest technological issue, at the same time it has born innovation out of adversity,” he says.
Currently, the biggest infrastructure project in Australia’s history, costing AU$35.7 billion (£18.2 billion) will ensure that most of the country will have access to some form of high speed broadband in the next decade.
“Australians just love technology but it’s not the willingness to take up AV but more a case of a limited population which leaves us missing out on new technologies as the market is viewed as too small,” says Bennett. “If suppliers and marketers take the time to know the market, the take-up is often better than other counties based on sales to population.”
“As big as Australia is geographically, it is also a very small place,” observes Chris Ware, v-p engineering at Audinate. Its first customer was Bruce Jackson (legendary sound engineer and founder of lighting and staging outfit, JANDS) in Sydney in 2006. “That was a fantastic break for Audinate to have a local team as our lead customer, especially one as connected within the industry as Bruce was.”
ZeeVee’s Michaels says he finds Aussie business culture similar to that of the US, perhaps because of their shared frontier spirit. “There is true ‘can do’ attitude and a bit of brashness in the approach that exudes confidence and thus credibility,” he says.
His company has only been active in the country since 2014 but is looking to make Australia one of its top three export markets within the next 12-18 months.
“There’s a strong desire to be educated and a deep belief in understanding the benefits of products as opposed to a superficial understanding of the features,” says Michaels.
AV/IT integration trend
The country doesn’t deviate much from the macro trends in other developed markets: the integration of AV with IT concentrating minds. “A great example is the Sydney metro network which is rolling out a networked AV system that can provide tightly synchronised, high quality audio throughout the train system (using Dante), resulting in real cost and performance advantages,” says Ware.
Sennheiser reports a swing towards AV falling under the IT banner in education and corporate local AV markets. “IT departments are increasingly looking to have AV specialists as part of their teams as they’ve recognised the need for specialist knowledge and know-how for AV products,” says Andy Niemann, director of business communication.
This is not quite the opinion of Simon Fourie, md at local distributor Audio Visual Distributors: “There are not a huge amount of IT skills in the AV industry here and general resistance to the merger of AV and IT is high.”
Early adopters of technology they may be but some clients appear innovative only from the influence of what happens internationally. “Clients are sacrificing quality over price,” Shine says. “The market is entirely price driven which limits the ability to offer innovation or creative solutions.”
The characteristic brashness of the Australian culture is transparently on display when its cities host fantastic architectural projections. Vivid Sydney is billed as the world’s largest light festival.
“Clients are generally quite innovative and open in their approach to AV, especially in the visitor-experience sector where we’ve seen a number of outstanding projects,” says Dean Stevenson, ceo, Interactive Controls – Dataton’s premium partner. He name-checks the recent WW1 re-development at the Australian War Memorial, and the immersive Antarctic attraction at Phillip Island. “Urban Yoga’s studio is another a good example of a non-traditional context taking a fresh look at AV,” he adds.
Mining for more
Australian’s economy is closely linked to China and as this has weakened in the past 12-18 months its business climate has softened.
“We’ve seen a downturn in the mining and raw material sectors which are two of the main drivers of the Australian economy,” notes Niemann. “There are still projects to be won but the level of optimism in the market is not what it was.”
Perth, capital of Western Australia is home to Australia’s mining billionaires, and “a mecca for AV integrators working with the major mining operations and mining company office AV fit-outs and home automations,” says Bennett.
Now the government is looking to develop the wealth of minerals, agriculture and aquaculture in the north of the country. Darwin in the Northern Territory (closer to the capitals of Asia than to any other major Australian city) and Cairns and Townsville in North Queensland are set to become the big winners. “The region is also on the receiving end of much of the country’s defence spending,” adds Bennett.
Brisbane and South-East Queensland which encapsulates the Gold Coast will stage the 2018 Commonwealth Games. The largest sporting event in the country this decade will inject more than AU$2 billion into Queensland’s economy with NEP Australia landing the host broadcast job. As is the way of such events, AV investment will be mainly temporary.
Brisbane’s airport precinct is the focus of a AU$4 billion development to make it a major international hub. It’s home to Christie’s Australian operations and an example of how a company strategically places its offices in a location to also assist in servicing its Asia and Pacific needs.
“Australians love to gamble,” says Bennett, observing that Australia is in the midst of a casino revolution. “New casinos are being built in Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane with major extensions to existing developments elsewhere.”
Working with the weather
The country also works around its weather patterns and natural disasters, he notes. The tropics of Northern Australia, for example, have a dry season when road and rail transport to Darwin and Cairns are heavily reliant on road and rail freight which is often cut by monsoons and cyclones in the summer with extreme humidity.
“AV rental companies and integrators tend to have a transient workforce as mining is the major industry all year,” Bennett reports.
Outside the mining areas “cities are very traditional, limiting their infrastructure development to restoring what once was,” reckons Fourie. “As you can imagine, this puts limits on new project roll-outs to gear that can be adapted to older infrastructure. An exception is the AU$1 billion International Convention Centre which opens in Sydney later this year.
If the mining boom is over, investment in healthcare represents an opportunity. “This is an ageing nation and right now there’s a huge healthcare push,” says Anderson. Exterity distributes IPTV through Midwich in Australia. “Staff and patients in hospitals expect the same information and entertainment environment as they can get at home.”
Systems integrator Rutledge was awarded a multi-million dollar contract for the AV install at the AU$1.2 billion Perth Children’s Hospital and AV services for the AU$1.8 billion Sunshine Coast University Hospital.
Fourie links the idea of the Nation’s relative youth with its cultural focus on family. “There is a great impetus on education. Development around this vertical is most prevalent.”
Sennheiser’s Niemann reckons the weakened Australian dollar means tertiary education has become more attractive to overseas students “causing universities to invest in the teaching spaces and infrastructure to lure students”. Universities, he adds, also see full fee-paying foreign students as a way to supplement income, “as the federal government has decreased funding to this sector.”
The biggest challenge for foreign AV companies tackling Australia is best summed up by Audinate’s Ware: “Building the customer base in the early days took effort, and a lot of travel,” he says. “In our experience the AV industry is fairly common the world over but Australians are definitely a little more relaxed by nature so that isn’t exactly a bad thing.”
Racecourse revamp
The Australian Turf Club’s AU$168 million redevelopment of Sydney’s Royal Randwick Racecourse includes an Exterity IPTV system of 800 networked HD displays. Displays are located throughout the venue including suites, ballrooms, outdoor spaces and management facilities.
The Exterity system enables control of each display and associated content centrally and from AMX control panels. In the hospitality areas, each of the 200 tables has its own Sony Vaio touchscreen — effectively a self-contained tablet PC — which allows visitors to change one of 60 channels.
Celebrate Sydney
Vivid Sydney, now in its eighth year, is recognised as the largest event of its kind in the world combining light, music and ideas. Owned, managed and produced by Destination NSW, the NSW Government’s tourism agency, the 23-day programme features large scale light installations and projections, music performances and collaborations intended to celebrate the city as the creative capital of the Asian Pacific. Production companies involved include 32 Hundred Lighting and Technical Direction Company. Locations include Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House, The Rocks, Martin Place, Darling Harbour and for the first time, Taronga Zoo and The Royal Botanic.
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