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Vivid – an annual celebration of creativity, innovation and technology that will enter its 15th year in 2025 – transforms Sydney over 23 days into a colourful array of art installations, beamed onto some of the city’s most iconic buildings.

Technology, in particular, plays a large part in bringing the event to life, and Sydney’s Technical Direction Company has played a key role in that process for over a decade.

The company provides the specialist equipment required to beam art onto Sydney’s Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Customs House, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

When 6pm hits and the lights go on, the art looks flawless. However, a lot of work happens behind the scenes, in the lead up to that moment.

TDC Head of Technical Services Drew Ferors advises “they're pretty sensitive bits of equipment.

“There's just a general rumble throughout the city at all times that can misalign the projectors.

“Traditionally we would attend these sites physically, get a little table and chairs out and put a laptop on it – sometimes at 2am - we would sit there and line up the building.”

It is certainly not the ideal scenario in a city that can have some cold and rainy weather during June and July, so in 2024 TDC launched its LiveView automated remote monitoring system, with special weatherproof cameras, to monitor thousands of pieces of equipment and troubleshoot issues while reducing staff travel.

“We install one or two Dahua cameras to the front of our projection towers,” Ferors added.

“They are nice and weatherproof so they can see everything. We use the PTZ models that have optical zoom, so they can hone into detailed areas of the building and we can line up buildings remotely.

“We are shooting the Opera House from 380 metres away so you want a very high optical zoom.

“The fact that the Dahua PTZ just needs an internet connection and then you have full control is really handy for us because of the amount of infrastructure and deployment time.’

The remote monitoring worked so well during Vivid 2024, that TDC is incorporating the Dahua cameras into their other projects, including the $15 million immersive experience; Dream Circus at Luna Park’s Big Top where over 39 projectors have been installed.

TDC tried a number of different brands before settling on the Dahua PTZ as the most suitable to support their needs.

Ferors explained “it was the most practically secure camera of the four we tested, it had the optical zoom and weatherproofing and was also cost effective for us.

“We are going to be scaling it up even more. Right now, all of the video feeds are focused on the actual projection, but we’ll eventually look to also use them from a good old fashioned security point of view.

“They have a great motion detector, so we’ll be able to tell if the tower was to be compromised or intruded upon.”

To find out more about Technical Direction Company’s work head to www.tdc.com.au

Dahua Technology is a world leading video-centric artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) solution and service provider and one of the most established security hardware providers in Australia.

Image top: The view of TDC’s remote monitoring through Dahua’s PTZ cameras; image below: Dahua’s PTZ camera mounted to the TDC tower projecting artworks onto Sydney’s Opera House.

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