Editor’s Note: Here, we profile our 2024 Integration Awards winner in the Best Retail Project category: Midtown Video for its work with CAMP, A Family Experience Company. Check out our recent roundup post to see a complete list of all 2024 Integration Awards winners.
CAMP, A Family Experience Company, is an innovative New York-based retail business with nine U.S. locations, which offer immersive, themed multimedia experiences combined with retail stores to entertain young families. At the front of each CAMP location is a standard toy store called The Canteen.
In each store, a secret passage (concealed by a sliding bookshelf) leads campers to a massive, immersive universe. These themed experiences are thanks to CAMP’s many partnerships with rightsholders, such as The Walt Disney Company. CAMP experiences based on Disney themes include “Mickey’s Birthday,” “Encanto,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Bluey” and “Doodles.”
Themed attractions rotate every six to eight months between CAMP stores — such as locations in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. — to keep the experience fresh and dynamic for families looking for cool things to do.
Photo credit: Midtown Video.
As kids explore this magical world, they interact with colorful sets, activities, games, puzzles, props, slides and more, all designed to immerse them in an unfolding story or adventure. The exhibition space features intriguing areas aglow with Midtown Video integrated AV projection, multimedia, lighting and sets inspired by the theme.
It’s here that Midtown Video worked its own magic. As a systems integrator, the company’s goal was to help CAMP deliver flawless AV/multimedia experiences, while meeting the client’s tight deadlines, safety concerns and high customer expectations. One of Midtown Video’s biggest contributions centered on converting an analog audio infrastructure to an agile, digital Dante audio management and distribution solution from Audinate. The benefit is that IP-networked AV components, including speakers and microphones, are faster and easier to re-map to the new experience with each theme rotation.
Midtown Video Draws on Decade-Long Relationship with CAMP
Over the past 10 years, Midtown Video has worked closely with Ben Kaufman, founder and CEO of CAMP, A Family Experience Company, along with his IT/AV manager Josh Wright, on his various business ventures. The integrator first met Kaufman in New York in 2014 when he was operating “Quirky,” a business that partnered budding inventors with expert product developers and marketers.
At that time, Kaufman asked Wright to search for a systems integration partner to help develop “evals,” which were live streaming events where inventors’ submissions were presented to the public by Quirky champions. Live studio and internet audience members were then polled to see which inventions were worthy of further development. Wright discovered Midtown Video by watching its popular TriCaster demonstration videos on YouTube.
For CAMP, Wright was tasked with implementing virtually all technological solutions within the magical CAMP space, including multimedia, lighting and control systems. According to Midtown Video’s CEO, Jesse Miller, “Having a partner with such deep understanding of technology has been critical to our success, and this project benefited from our great working relationship.”
CAMP Seeks Midtown Video to Improve Themed Experience Rotation
Photo credit: Midtown Video.
One of the greatest technical and logistical challenges facing CAMP stemmed from the rotation of themed experiences between various locations. For example, when the “Trolls” experience opened at the flagship CAMP NYC location on 5th Avenue, the Disney “Encanto” experience that had been there was packed up and shipped to CAMP Washington, D.C. To further illustrate this, CAMP changed over its Chicago location’s themed experience from “Doodles” to “Bluey” in June 2024.
These installation timelines are very tight, and it’s especially stressful when technical personnel must pull cable and re-wire analog audio for the latest themed attraction — as was the case at CAMP 5th Avenue. Although this store first opened in 2018, CAMP engaged Midtown Video for its services in February 2024 to upgrade that location with digital control systems, especially for audio.
The key directive for Midtown Video was to match CAMP 5th Avenue’s capabilities with those of other CAMP locations in Atlanta, Chicago and Washington, D.C., all of which had been digital from day one. CAMP locations in Los Angeles, Dallas, Connecticut and Boston are the remaining analog locations, still waiting to be upgraded. Midtown Video’s service plan allows for continuing remote technical support at CAMP locations that it has upgraded.
One of the Biggest Hurdles
One of the biggest hurdles for Midtown Video was being unable to begin the onsite AV implementation until all other work was done. That other work included building sets, painting walls and laying carpet. This left only two weeks to complete the AV, including mounting DMX lighting, Wi-Fi access points, IP cameras, pendant speakers and projectors from a 6’x6’ Unistrut ceiling grid suspended 13 feet above the themed experience space.
Because floor maps differ greatly for each experience, audio zones typically have different sizes and shapes, thus requiring different speaker placement. With analog audio, time constraints made it difficult for technicians to re-run analog speaker cables from the rack room to the speaker zones and reconfigure the speakers.
Converting to Audinate Dante digital-audio-over-IP networking was a game changer. Now, a technician only has to compare the experience floorplan against the speaker locations and digitally re-zone IP-enabled speakers. This involves simply updating the Dante Software Controller and DSP software so that existing hardware and cabling support the new layout.
The installation involved placing roughly 120 network connections on the ceiling grid, allowing network devices (particularly IP-enabled speakers) to be mounted where needed. Midtown Video also filled a rack with NETGEAR M4250 switches and installed roughly 20 SoundTube IP-enabled pendant speakers, six IP-enabled trapezoid speakers and a 15-inch subwoofer with Audinate Avio Dante-to-XLR-output adapter.
Photo credit: Midtown Video.
At times, a speaker may need to be moved to support a new zone. However, because all IP network connection points are based on the same shielded RJ45 jack on the ceiling grid, a 10-foot shielded network patch cable guarantees connectivity from anywhere. And if the team overloads one location with devices, it’s possible to simply add a small PoE+ switch to rebalance the load.
The result is greater operational flexibility with fewer manhours and less stress.
CAMP and Midtown Video are Both Pleased
Upon completion of the digital audio infrastructure at CAMP 5th Avenue, Wright posted on his LinkedIn page, “Thanks for everything you do for us, Jesse Miller. You’ve always shown us what a partnership is supposed to look like.”
Wright also texted Midtown Video his appreciation, saying, “I’ve made thousands of vendor relationships over my years in business, and I don’t cherish or trust wholeheartedly any of them the way I do the relationship we’ve built. Midtown is special.”
