And just like that 2023 is coming to a close! Before we shut up shop for Christmas (between 21st Dec – 2nd Jan) we thought you’d like a look back at some of BBAV’s highlights from 2023…

A relatively local project which we really enjoyed working on with the awesome Menter Dinefwr team over at Hengwrt in Llandeilo – designing and installing a new heritage centre: 

“We wanted to create a vibrant and welcoming heritage centre in Hengwrt and Blackbox-av helped turn our vision into reality! The combination of traditional methods of interpretation and digital interactives provide visitors with a multi-media experience, bringing the area’s history to life… The end result is a vivid, enticing, and multifaceted display that reflects the local area’s rich heritage.”

– Elen Jones, Menter Dinefwr’s Heritage Officer

We often work with The National Archives in their ever changing exhibition space. One of the latest of which was – ‘Treason: People, Power & Plot’ – taking a look at England’s history of treason and the involvement of figures such as Guy Fawkes, Anne Boleyn and Charles I.

Amongst a plethora of AV items, we installed and programmed an impressive 3-projector system that surrounds a case containing the original Treason Act of 1352.

Another of our contributions to The National Archives this year was for the Spirit of Invention exhibition, featuring our (already on site) short-throw projectors alongside a selection of new hardware – such as our Android Tablets, and other commercial or bespoke AV elements, helping bring a layer of memorable interpretation to this exciting space.

‘Monkey Valley’ is one of London Zoos latest attractions for 2023 – an impressive area that towers 80ft high allowing visitors to walk amongst a newly built Monkey habitat.

As part of the space is ‘Colobus Corner’ an area that lets visitors learn all about the Colobus Monkeys. Here you’ll find an audio sign we supplied complete with outdoor headphones that ensure audio doesn’t disturb the new residents.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History is always shifting and adapting to offer fresh experiences, with the most recent Life, As We Know It project showcasing some off-the-shelf hardware from us, blackbox-av. 

Two 55″ Screens form a closely stitched video wall, framed to make one giant circular presentation about the world’s natural networks. While a single 55″ Mediascreen is cleverly installed behind a panel that breaks it into seven individual displays with a focus on animal diversity.

The Broads National Park is Britain’s largest protected wetland. It also boasts the smallest National Park Information Centre in the world! (don’t fact check that, it’s self proclaimed!). 

Bought for just £1, a 50 year old telephone box was fully restored and outfitted with signage that included our outdoor audio point the oversized U-Turn Round – providing information and audio any time of year without the need for mains power! This was a fun little project to be a part of.

Warkworth Castle has been a popular visitor attraction since opening to the public way back in the 18th Century. New additions to an ancient heritage monument such as this require a very special approach… enter Studio Wignall & Moore, an award winning design firm that includes architects and makers.

New interpretive installations have seen a series of information panels detailing a different characters journey’s dotted around the castle. Each journey begins with a bespoke audio pillar created with our Solar Audio Post Electronics, these allow visitors to ‘meet’ each character and hear their words, written by award-winning author and poet Eley Williams. Pictured above is a bespoke audio installation that can also be found at the castle which involves the turning of a huge key to activate audio.

In a project at Tolvaddon Fire Station that saw a great use for our unique Audio Solar Bench, award-winning sound artist Justin Wiggan installed one programmed with meditative audio designed to help staff de-stress during what can be a very difficult job.

“It might look like a bench, but to the crew here at Tolvaddon Fire Station near Camborne, it’s a super sonic stress-buster.”

– Andrea Ormsby, BBC Spotlight

The Danish Welfare Museum utilised our MKII Double Cup Headphones telling the history of the poor, sick and homeless who were once exiled to poorhouses.

One exhibit comprises of peepholes and video screens that create a sort of voyeuristic experience representative of the way the poor were treated at the time. These video units create a very personal viewing experience while the headphones ensure audio bleed is kept to a minimum.

Leicester Museums and Galleries utilised bespoke Audio Frame units across two of their locations as well as an Audio Post. We particularly like this project because it’s a great showcase of how flexible the Audio Frame is when the full colour graphic face is utilised well.

The Audio Frames were used to give visitors a selection audio clips at Leicester’s flagship museum, while a solar powered audio post was installed in the Dementia Friendly sensory garden at Abbey Pumping Station – Leicester’s Industrial Museum.

Funded by the UK Government and designed in collaboration with Neath Port Talbot Council and Dramatic Heart of Wales, the Heart of Steel has been developed to reflect the diverse beauty of Margam Country Park as well as the surrounding area of the valleys, steelworks and beach.

Our involvement with this mighty heart would go from resolving some technical issues, to adding finishing touches with the creation of a full base with an embedded SoundClip-2 and subwoofer, bringing the beating heart to life.

Alongside nearly completing our refreshed series of Lightbox 3 videos, we decided to assemble a multi-app bundle for our Lightbox 3 Software package, fittingly titled Games.

Puzzle lets you take any image and turn it into a jigsaw. Memory takes a selection of images and turns them into a find-the-pair game. And Match, a brand new addition, asks you to figure out which images should be paired together. All with optional information pop-ups upon the successful completion of a puzzle, discovery of a pair, or matching of images.

This year, we also released Analytics as a new bolt-on addition to our Lightbox 3 Software package.

Analytics is able to generate statistics for you that detail the number of views, length of interaction and various other stats displayed with easy to digest graphs. These are viewable in various timescales, from days to years, and can be easily exported into PDFs for reference. A great way to track how visitors are engaging with your touchscreen interactive.

2023 also saw the release of the improved SoundClips. Our range of compact, stand-alone, high quality stereo audio players. Designed to be easy to install and program the SCV2 supports up to 2 button inputs while the SC12 supports up to 12.

Although launched in October 2022 we’d like to point your direction once again towards our sleek new(ish) showreel, demonstrating some of the largest and most standout projects we’ve completed.

So that’s about it for 2023… Check out our portfolio for a more in-depth look at some of the projects we completed this year, we can’t wait to work on plenty more in 2024. Happy Holidays everyone and we’ll see you in the new year!