With the Democratic and Republican conventions behind us, it’s clear that both parties viewed their respective conventions as a vital tool to explain to millions of Americans why their nominated leader should be the next President of the United States. With such high stakes, an AV technology failure could have been catastrophic, potentially interfering with a party’s ability to communicate its message. 

While the two parties don’t agree on everything, Democratic and Republican convention organizers achieved a bipartisan consensus regarding one issue:  Both parties turned to Panasonic to provide critical AV technology needed to deliver the conventions’ important visual elements.     

At the Democratic National Convention, our 85”, 65” and 50” Professional Plasma Displays served as teleprompter screens for the main stage, in television production support and as monitors for backstage functions.  Additionally, our 32″ Professional LCD Displays provided digital signage at delegate hotels and at Charlotte-area event venues for real-time updates for convention-goers.

Panasonic projectors were used in key locations at Charlotte‘s Time Warner Cable Arena to display speakers and videos for those attendees seated in blind-spots. For video production purposes, Panasonic provided AG-HMC40 and AG-HPX250 professional HD video camcorders, plus small-to-large size production monitors, to help capture the action both inside the convention and at various events in the surrounding areas. And Panasonic Toughbook® computers assisted with technical operations management.

At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL, we provided the AG-HPX250 P2 Handheld Camcorder which captured time-lapse video of the convention’s build-out through its final night in the Tampa Bay Times Forum – you can check it out at www.gopconvention2012.com.  The convention’s media center used an 85″ Professional Plasma Display to track the convention floor action, and our 32″ Professional LCD Displays provided digital signage in areas between the Times Forum and Tampa Convention Center, which supplied attendees with up-to-the-minute video messages on convention themes.

Also, in a “first” for a national political convention, the producers of the Republican National Convention captured key moments in Full-HD 3D, using our AG-3DP1 Integrated Twin-Lens 3D P2 HD Camcorder and our HDC-Z10000 Twin-lens 2D/3D Handheld Camcorder.

Despite their differences on policy issues, both parties decided it was good policy to put their faith in Panasonic’s high quality, reliable AV solutions.