Built to run - PSP's automated Audi RS5 activation for TRO at Silverstone
PSP delivered a fully automated brand activation for the Audi RS5 at Silverstone, once again supporting our long-standing client TRO. Running as a continuous show cycle from the moment the doors opened, the experience needed to perform reliably, show after show, without an operator driving every cue by hand.
The Brief
TRO asked PSP to deliver an Audi RS5 brand experience that could run continuously throughout the day at Silverstone, with minimal onsite intervention once the show was live. The activation needed to repeat on a fixed cycle, stay perfectly in time with itself on every run, and be simple enough for the onsite team to operate without a dedicated technical operator standing by for every cue.
PSP's remit covered the full technical delivery: technical pre-production, video, sound, lighting, programming and design, and technical crew on the ground for the build, show days and breakdown.
Brand activations at motorsport events live or die on frequency. With crowds moving through the space all day rather than arriving for a single scheduled slot, the experience must be ready to perform again and again, at a consistent standard, for anyone who happens to be passing. That puts the emphasis on the technical build long before doors open: the show must be right first time, because once it's live it's running unattended, over and over, for hours at a stretch.
The Delivery
The activation runs as a continuous show cycle, triggering every four minutes from doors open. That cadence is unforgiving: there's no room for drift, and no time between cycles to manually reset. To make it work, PSP's programming team built the entire sequence around automated show control rather than live-operated cues.
The result is a single button press for the onsite team. Everything from that point, video, sound and lighting, runs in lockstep, cycle after cycle, for the full duration of the activation.
That simplicity onsite is the payoff of work done well before Silverstone. PSP's technical pre-production and programming team built and tested the show in advance, so the crew on the ground could focus on running it rather than troubleshooting it. It's a good illustration of where PSP's value sits: not just supplying video, sound and lighting kit, but doing the technical thinking upfront so the live operation is as straightforward as possible for the people running it on the day.
The kit on site
The activation combined a broad spread of video, lighting and interactive kit, all running on the same automated cycle:
● A 4.5m x 2.5m LED wall as the main video element
● Around 52 Astera Hyperion tubes providing feature lighting
● Haptic floor tiles, supplied by BetaBlocks, each fitted with its own LED edge strip, individually controlled as part of the show
● White Robe 150 fixtures lighting the car in the outside area
● A custom-built Lightbox, suspended above the car outside
The floor tiles from BetaBlocks in particular extended the automated control beyond video, sound and overhead lighting: each tile's LED edge was brought into the same show, so the floor itself became part of the choreographed cycle rather than a static surface underfoot.
Show control: QLab and Avolites D7
The show is driven via QLab, a show control software that fires video and audio cues in sequence and locked to timecode, meaning every cue is tied to a master running clock rather than triggered one at a time by hand. QLab sends that timecode to an Avolites D7 lighting console, which runs the full lighting cue stack in time with it, so lighting, video and sound all stay locked together on every cycle.
In practice, this is what allows a complex, multi-element show to repeat exactly the same way every four minutes without a technical operator calling each cue live.
For an activation running non-stop across a full show day, that reliability matters more than almost anything else. It's the difference between a show that needs constant technical attention and one the onsite team can run themselves with confidence.
The Result
Since doors opened, the activation has run to schedule, cycling every four minutes without interruption. The automated, single button-press format has made it straightforward for TRO's onsite team to keep the experience running consistently throughout the day.
The same automated show is also touring on to further automotive festivals beyond Silverstone, carrying the same consistency and ease of operation to new audiences at each stop. Because the show was built to run itself from a single trigger, it travels well: the same reliable, repeatable cycle that worked at Silverstone can be set up and handed back to an onsite team at each new location with the same ease.
It's a good example of what careful show programming makes possible: a technically demanding activation that looks effortless from the other side of the barrier, and just as effortless for the team running it.