During the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), when rock band Pearl Jam was in the city to support the documentary Pearl Jam Twenty and to perform a sold-out concert at the Air Canada Centre (ACC), front man Eddie Vedder also performed at a charity fundraising event at a private residence, where NanoLumens’ flexible digital signage technology also took centre stage.
A 2.8-m (112-in.) NanoFlex light-emitting diode (LED) display was hung from the Toronto house’s balcony, as part of the event organizers’ efforts to turn the backyard into a temporary concert venue. The waterproof screen was provided by Canadian distributor APG Displays.
“There’s a reason most concerts take place at night” says David Weatherhead, APG’s vice-president (VP). “Stage lights and video displays are easiest to see in the dark. For a midday concert where video is shown in direct sunlight, the display has to be exceptionally bright for people to see it. The NanoFlex display excelled in this regard.”
The outdoor event drew more than 250 guests and raised more than $600,000 for Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ), a celebrity-backed organization established in 2009, which used the funds to help open a new building for the Academy for Peace and Justice, the first free secondary school serving very poor students in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
“When APJ told us what they wanted to do, we decided to lend a hand to the cause and provide the NanoFlex display for the four-hour event,” says Weatherhead. “We were able to hang the screen right over the back porch of the house in less than an hour because it’s so light. I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that with any other display.”
