Olympian Effort: 12 Towers

With the Winter Olympics occurring only once every four years, being a part of the festivities is, of course, a big deal. So when Rainier Displays (www.rainier.com) in Tukwila, Washington, won the intense bidding contest to produce venue towers complete with digitally printed fabric graphics for the February 2010 mega-event, the company was thrilled.

“Our company was chosen because of our unique capabilities to bring large outdoor dimensional graphic treatments to life,” says Rainier Displays division manager Charles Rueb.

Rainier went full steam ahead in its production of 12 venue towers—not just the graphics—each measuring 40-feet tall, which would serve as beacons to highlight all the major venues at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The towers consisted of a proprietary steel frame system erected from a concrete base with decorative wood from forests that had been heavily damaged by wood-boring beetles. Additionally, the towers were fitted with an aluminum track system especially designed for digitally printed fabrics, and backlit with LED lights that transitioned between white, green, and blue.

Rainier used its Durst Rho 351R and Rho 800 with white ink in conjunction with Caldera RIP to output the graphics, which featured the Canadian maple leaf and national anthem, onto Cooley Cooley-Brite 16-ounce. The section printed with white ink was done on a translucent backlit material while the corners were done on a white blockout material with reverse-cut letters on translucent vinyl; the square pictograms were direct printed onto backlit polycarbonate.

Print time was approximately one month, with a total turnaround time of 70 days. Installation of the graphics was completed by Sopers Inc. of Toronto.
 

RAINIER DISPLAYS
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