After suffering a devasting fire, the owners of the NBC Conference Centre turned to its long-term AV partner to create a flexible and futureproof venue. Paul Milligan finds out how it was done.
The NBC Conference Centre in the Dutch city of Nieuwegein has not had it easy in recent years.
The global Covid pandemic hit the events industry harder than most during 2020 and 2021, and the NBC was no exception. Just as the venue was finding its feet again it was to suffer another blow, in the form of a devastating fire which lasted for 16 hours in September 2022. Ninety per cent of the building received smoke or heat damage, which caused the venue to be closed for a whole year afterwards.
Just to add to the unfair nature of it all, the venue had only just finished an AV upgrade three weeks before the fire took place. What has emerged since then is the winner of the 2025 Inavation Awards Venues and Events Spaces project category. In place now are two large event spaces, including the largest fixed 3D projection décor in the Netherlands, and 20 flexible breakout rooms.
Dutch systems integrator AVEX was the only choice to head up the AV design and installation, as it’s been a partner of the NBC for an incredible 32 years. “We have known the owner (Justin van Hooijdonk) for such a long time we don’t have to use words to understand each other. The NBC as a venue is always very active on technology so it wasn’t even up for discussion not to go for this new challenge,” says René Doeser, account manager, AVEX.
So was the plan to replicate what they had just lost, or approach it with the mindset that the venue now has a blank canvas and can do something different? It was a combination of both says Doeser, “The functionality had to be the same. For a venue like this, their main proposition is renting the rooms. What the owner and his other colleagues said to me was it needed to be futureproof, and it had to be innovative, but we don’t won’t to be a lab rat, it has to be proven. Don’t test anything on us.” Ease of use for the NBC’s events staff was also a priority, so the joint philosophy here was very much “foolproof and futureproof”.
The AV supplied by AVEX, which Doeser says covers everything apart from lighting and rigging, starts even before you set foot in the NBC, with large wayfinding LED screens in the parking area. When you walk into the venue, you’ll immediately see nine 6-metre-high LED pillars in the hospitality area (this area can be divided in two if the venue is booked by multiple clients). Digital signage in these areas is automatically filled by data sitting in the booking system and via the use of specially created templates, so a client will see their logo as soon as they walk into the venue.
Overall, there are 80 LG screens dotted around the NBC for wayfinding and digital signage, all controlled by Scala media players. Thankfully some screens from the site that were undamaged from the fire were able to be reused. Crestron NVX is the AVoIP backbone of the NBC, a central control room serves as the ‘brain’ of NBC’s AV system, allowing operators to remotely manage and configure the AV setup across all spaces. The AVoIP system uses existing network infrastructure, transforming each network port into a potential AV connection point. This design enables quick room reconfiguration and AV setup through unique device MAC addresses, allowing AVEX to automatically recognise and assign devices to specific rooms. This type of network setup also simplifies operations, reduces setup time, and enables efficient event management.
The NBC has the luxury of having two halls, the 900-seat capacity Grand Hall and the 1,750-seat capacity Event Hall. The halls can stay as two separate venues or be combined into one larger arena. Doeser explains how that works: “Sometimes we start with a plenary session of 1,000 people in both the halls combined, and then they have breakout sessions when we can divide the rooms. For us it’s one click of the system and the technical element is divided. We have two identical control systems for both halls, and when it’s combined, we just use one of course.”
Both halls feature loudspeakers from L-Acoustics, and content is handled by Dataton Watchout. The original projectors were destroyed in the fire, and the new system needed to offer an improved image quality and reliability to meet conferencing demands. The NBC also required a switching system that could manage complex presentations, accommodating multiple sources and ensuring transitions between different presentations and media during events. Barco UDX series 4K projectors, combined with the Barco external coolers and a selection of ultra-short-throw lenses, were installed in the two main halls. To manage and process multiple video inputs and outputs, Barco’s E2 Gen2 presentation switcher was installed as a central control unit for the two main event spaces, alongside a PDS-4K presentation switcher. Four free-standing projection screens totalling 48-metres wide (4 x 12-metre) in the Main Hall help to give a 3D effect to attendees watching the stage, powered by four Barco 37,500 lumens projectors.
The 20 meeting/breakout session rooms all have similar technology, with a three-screen setup, a main 98-in screen for presentations and two portrait displays on either side for digital signage. Audio in the meeting rooms comes via custom made speakers on the side of the screens, and Bose ceiling speakers. Each room is equipped with one headset and one microphone, but like the two halls, some rooms can be combined. Doeser explains how that process works with the audio: “We use the Dante domain manager which creates sub-sections within the building, for instance, we have one main section with six rooms in it, we can assign the microphones to one room if they are combined. If we are using rooms 6 to 10, we can have 10 microphones available and we can assign them to one room. When we have a technician to operate it, we can plug in the Dante mixer, and all microphones will then sit on that mixer. Sometimes we have to assign or reassign microphones or unassign microphones within a couple of minutes, having that flexibility helps us.”
The rooms all have video conferencing capabilities with PTZ cameras, content can be streamed to other rooms or the outside world if required. Most rooms can be interconnected, providing flexibility for larger events. The client requested a hard connection rather than via wireless in the meeting rooms, so users connect via an HDMI cable which links it to the Crestron NVX. Each room has a live camera feed, a presentation feed and an audio feed, that come together in the master control room. “From there we can say, well we have four rooms we need to stream outside, we have six encoders on site so we can stream six rooms simultaneously to the outside world if we want, but if we need 20 rooms, we can get more encoders from our rental stock,” explains Doeser.
AV control during events is via an HTML page AVEX has setup, so banqueting managers can control the lighting and temperature control from their mobile phones, which means staff can control AV settings, lighting, and climate on the go, with added HD camera feeds to monitor in-room activities so they can provide immediate support if needed. AVEX started working on this project the week after the fire took place, with testing and factory acceptance tests taking place at its office. AVEX first started on site August 2023, and the new version of the NBC was opened March 2024, after two months of testing and soft opens.
The biggest challenge on the project was the timeline says Doeser, “in relation to the programming and to get the AV LAN up and running. We had a quite large team of engineers and programmers on this project, and the programmers had many sleepless nights at the beginning trying to figure out how to do it all.” To make sure the client got what they wanted, AVEX spent time interviewing staff at the NBC to find out how they would you use the AV system. “That’s why we had a custom-built interface made (based on the Crestron NVX platform) for them. We are now developing it for other clients, in a smaller (or bigger) way because it’s very scalable,” says Doeser.
Most of the testing of the AV systems happened off-site he adds: “You need to have a proven system because you don’t know what challenges are on site once you are on their network.” AVEX brought the client along to different sessions off-site, so they could familiarise themselves with the technology that was about to be installed. Training was given by AVEX to more than 50 employees, including banqueting staff from the venue. Going forward there are plans for more LED around the venue, and AVEX is tasked with R&D on new products as part of its ongoing service contract here.
KIT LIST
Allen & Heath Avantis mixing desk
Audinate Dante Domain Manager, Dante Avio output adapter
Barco UDX 4K40 FLEX projectors, E2 Gen 2 BTO show control system, EX Tricombo processor, EC-30 event controller
Biamp Tesira Server-IO DSP
Blackmagic constellation 4ME production switcher
Bose FreeSpace ceiling loudspeakers
Bosch Hemi loudspeakers, Praesensa PA system, LC1-WM06E8 ceiling loudspeakers, LBC-3430/03 and LBC3432/03 sound projector loudspeakers, LB1-UM06E1 cabinet loudspeakers, LH2-UC15E horn loudspeakers
Crestron DM NVX encoder/decoder, virtual control server software, 10-in touchscreens
Dataton Watchout V7 media servers, Watchpax 60B media servers
Fohhn Custom Scale-2 loudspeakers
L-Acoustics line-array system LG 98-in, 86-in, 65-in, 55-in, 49-in, 43-in 4K LED displays, 86-in stretched displays
Netgear AXM764 transceivers, switchers
Novastar H15 LED processing
Panasonic AW-UE150 PTZ cameras, PRO DVX 37-in stretched displays
Scala media players
Shure Axient wireless mics