Venues & Events

Satellite singing connects French and English school children with a little help from AVT

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Category: Venues & Events

Created on Tuesday, 01 May 2012 10:24

Satellite singing connects French and English school children with a little help from AVT

In a unique and interesting project which saw over 400 children between the ages of 7-11 gather at two different venues, one in Caen in France and the other in Portsmouth, history was made.
This project was one of three that have been carried out over three years as part of the same initiative.  Choirs of around 30 children from 15 schools in total from Caen and Portsmouth gathered at their respective locations to take turns to sing to each other via live satellite link up.  In what is an extremely moving and emotional exchange, the children were able to see and hear each other via huge screens.

In Caen, the children were at their beautiful, ornate historic town hall also known as Hotel de Ville, the French term for town hall.  In the UK they were at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, home to three of the most important ships ever built, one of the  country’s leading maritime museums and a high-tech showcase of the modern Royal Navy.

The purpose of the project, which is funded by the European Union through Interreg, is to stimulate better knowledge of other cultures and encourage learning the language.  Interreg is an EEC organisation whose purpose it is to stimulate co-operation between member states of the European Union by strengthening economic and social cohesion and diminishing the influence of national borders.

AVT Connect, the live events and digital communications specialists were on hand to provide a professional set up tailored to the technical needs of the event including screens and the satellite capacity to link up to the team in Caen.  AVT’s technical crew liaised with the venue, the team in Portsmouth and the team in Caen to ensure the event ran smoothly – and with 200 excited children in the UK venue at the same time this was as challenging as it was awe-inspiring.

    AVT’s technician on the day, Karl Haniche, said of the event, “I’ve never seen, never mind worked with, so many children.  They were fantastic and very co-operative. It was a truly wonderful event to work on.”