Original Syndicate Turnkeys Technical Services for Futuristic LifeWave Welcome Center
Original Syndicate, the high-performance system design and integration company headquartered in Burbank and operating globally, drew on its technological expertise in system design and extensive experience with event and entertainment projects to create the LifeWave Customer Welcome Center in Draper, Utah.
Original Syndicate provided turnkey technical design, installation, and integration services for the entire project. Driven by innovation and proven by science, LifeWave is dedicated to maximizing potential through advanced life technology. Its immersive Welcome Center takes visitors on an awe-inspiring journey through the company’s evolution, from its groundbreaking beginnings to its emergence as the fastest-growing global network marketing company.
“LifeWave is on a massive growth trajectory and wanted the Welcome Center to showcase some of the products and processes behind their success,” explains Original Syndicate Founder and CEO Ben C. Roth. The company conducts several 20-minute guided tours daily for groups of LifeWave brand ambassadors to further their engagement with the firm and introduce them to current and future products.
The Welcome Center’s futuristic look began with Academy Award-Winning Production Designer Doug Drexler’s imaginative Star Trek-like concept designs, which were then created perfectly to spec by set builders straight out of Hollywood. “What was cool was that Original Syndicate let us step inside Doug’s designs before anything was built,” says Jim Caldwell, Senior VP, Special Projects, at LifeWave. “Their real-time visualization process allowed us to experience the space at scale, explore display options, and understand how different technologies impacted both the experience and our budget. That level of clarity made decision-making so much easier.”
“We were hired to translate their creative intent into how visitors would experience the LifeWave story up close with many immersive displays,” says Original Syndicate CTO Marcus Bengtsson. “Our real-time 3D workflow allowed us to build a photo-real and pixel-accurate representation of the entire space, so we could previsualize different display technologies and help inform LifeWave’s decision making.”
“Although we are a young company, we have many years of experience in the client services space,” notes Roth. “As technology has become integral to storytelling and engaging people, it’s not feasible to just give the client renderings or PowerPoint decks and expect them to make knowledgeable decisions. So we incorporate previs with virtual production workflows using game engine technology, 3D design and modeling tools and proprietary workflows to create a real-time 3D visualization process with incredible accuracy and fidelity. We build the actual space in 3D with everything accurate to scale so you can move around it in real-time.
“This master plan for the entire Welcome Center space informed LifeWave about their display options, their resolution and pixel pitch, and how that affected the budget they had in mind,” he points out. “Our experience in the cinematic side of technology also enabled us to understand what LifeWave wanted to communicate to visitors as they toured the space and whether one-way or interactive engagement was best: Was this high-level brand content or a deep dive into solutions at kiosks? We had to match the hardware with the storytelling components in a holistic way.”
The Welcome Center is divided into four zones of experience. Visitors first enter the Hologram Room where they’re given a holographic presentation by LifeWave Founder and CEO David Schmidt. They proceed to the Time Travel Tunnel, an immersive cinematic journey through the company’s history and future. Next, a series of Interactive Product Kiosks offers hands-on product information, and soon, will showcase testimonials and inspirational success stories from global brand partners. LifeWave’s flagship X39 photo therapy patch is also showcased in a big screen presentation. Finally, visitors get to look Beyond Tomorrow with a glimpse of products being developed in the fields of aviation, energy and water.
Original Syndicate’s work on the project began with zone two where the visually stunning Time Travel Tunnel surrounds visitors with immersive imagery displayed on the world’s largest deployment of Megapixel’s new Ventana LED Display, powered by its HELIOS LED Processing Platform. Throughout the Welcome Center project, Original Syndicate worked closely with Megapixel, a leader in advanced display and processing technology for large-scale projects, corporate environments, and enterprise-level applications. The Ventana LED Display delivers stunning resolution with ultra-slim, modular tiles that offer architectural flexibility, seamless integration, and customizable design to enhance any space.
“Although we specified Ventana displays when they were brand new to the market, Megapixel’s deep experience in software and hardware led us down the path of choosing the product,” says Bengtsson. “LifeWave’s brief for the Welcome Center had a Star Trek-esque feel with black reflective surfaces. We wanted those same high-gloss surfaces for the LED screens so they’d match that look when there was no content or dark content on the screens. They also needed to have high enough resolution that people standing three feet away couldn’t discern pixels. In addition, the displays had to be highly durable for a permanent installation, have a powerful processing platform, offer Cloud-based monitoring and remote management. Megapixel delivered on every point.”
For the two side walls of the tunnel Original Syndicate chose Ventana 0.8mm pixel pitch LED displays. The ceiling is covered with a 1.25mm Ventana LED display; Original Syndicate partnered with Megapixel to customize a frame to mount the Ventana tiles upside down across the ceiling, a world’s first.
Megapixel CEO Jeremy Hochman says “We truly enjoyed working with Original Syndicate and believe they were a fantastic team to execute this type of project. Their expertise and commitment to excellence made them a natural choice, and we’re excited to have them on board as a preferred Megapixel integration partner. We’re looking forward to many more successful collaborations in the future.”
Ventana also plays a key role in zone three where a massive Ventana .8mm LED screen showcases LifeWave’s flagship X39 and X49 products in a video loop. Along the sides of the space, eight interactive kiosks are outfitted with 55-inch Sony OLED screens. Although they are designed as post-production reference monitors, the displays are ideal for this application since their high-quality color reproduction matches closely with the Ventana displays in both the Time Travel Tunnel and the zone three main screen.
Content for the Time Travel Tunnel and the interactive kiosks was created and programmed by Chicago-based Futureman, an Original Syndicate partner with expertise in building interactive brand experiences.
The final zone in the Welcome Center, Beyond Tomorrow, contains three cylindrical display stations detailing future products in the categories of humanitarian drones, power generation and enhanced, light-infused water. The stations’ LG OLED-T transparent OLED displays give the impression of content floating in space – an attention-getting wrap up for the visitors’ futuristic immersive experience.
A custom built Original Syndicate show control system, driven by six AV Stumpfl PIXERA two QUAD Gen.2 media servers, controls video, audio, and lighting in all of the Welcome Center’s zones as well as controlling the Proto Epic hologram device in zone one. In the Welcome Center’s control room, operators have access to every server via a 4K KVM system, but day-to-day operations are typically handled via a Stream Deck, ensuring that a tour can be started with the push of a single button.
“This project truly represents the holistic approach we take to system design and integration,” says Bengtsson. “The Welcome Center has been a new and exciting venture for us as a company. Its combination of technologies – LEDs and OLEDs for color accuracy tied to a single show control system – is quite unique for a corporate space. It’s a new approach for this market that’s well established in live events.”
“We deployed these solid, proven technologies in a new way to deliver unprecedented results,” adds Roth.
Original Syndicate remains involved with the Welcome Center post-installation with SLAs that enable the company to remotely monitor devices and systems to ensure optimum performance moving forward.
At Original Syndicate, Chris Nyfield is the Director of Design, Asher Robinson served as the Senior Systems Engineer, Bruce Wheaton as Systems Programmer and Emily Walls as Project Manager. Marc Rizzo, CEO of Rizzo Design, was the overall Project Manager for the client.