Title	THE STELLAR ATRIUM PROJECT
Brand	LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE GROUP
Product/Service	CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Category	A02. Creative Innovation (incl. business solutions in association with a brand or creative campaign)
Entrant Company	FRAMESTORE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency	FRAMESTORE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production Company	FRAMESTORE London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Robin Carlisle	Framestore	Installation Director
Jonny Dixon	Framestore	Producer
Tom Schwarz	Framestore	Graphics Programming
Chris Rayner	Framestore	Graphics Programming
Matt Sypien	-	Designer
Mark Nicholson	-	Music Composition

The Brief

The brief from client was to create new contemporary content for the multiple screens in the London Stock Exchange’s atrium - a permanent installation made of 500+ individual screens divided into seven pre-existing arrangements. The installation was to serve two purposes, firstly to work as a sales tool to open the market every morning for IPOs and secondly to show market data, news feeds, video content and live TV throughout the day. In their words: “The ceremony needs to be hi-tech, forward thinking, dynamic yet maintain a strong bond and connection to the history and austerity of the London Stock Exchange”. Since screen-based trading was introduced in 1986 visitors to the stock exchange don't see any activity. It was important that an element of the activity on the exchange be visible again somehow. They also wanted to reflect the speed and breadth of their data feed they provide to their digital trading platform. They are proud to say it is the fastest platform in the world - but their current content didn’t reflect this. LSEG thought the current content was too static, and when they wanted to update it it was expensive and slow to do. They challenged us with making a dynamic, customisable system they could use in-house to tailor make IPO events for each company. Along with the conceptual and creative elements to the project, there were technical challenges too in that these requirements needed to run on a system that used as much of the current infrastructure as possible. A large investment in screens and supporting hardware had been made two years prior and LSEG were keen to keep as much of it intact as possible.

Creative: The concept was formed around the financial “Big Bang”. Our graphics would be themed around a galaxy concept, with the daily “Birth of the Stock Market” a hub for the Market Open sequences. Software: To facilitate the dynamic nature of the brief and show instant updates we needed to create a live environment that could be fed by the Proquote data feed that LSEG use in their trading terminals. The team wrote low level OpenGL and C++ code to create a series of dependant software modules to interrogate the feed, populate a central database, and draw the results in a comprehendible way. This created a living galaxy of data, showing in-depth, detailed market data and trade information in real time. Writing the software in this way gave maximum performance as well as supportability. Control: For LSE to tailor each experience to their clients they would need tools to input personal company data. These were important, and would dramatically improve the current process. This would also be seen as return on investment, giving them content management in a controllable environment. Hardware: We had to work with the core infrastructure but had some latitude with units like the media players. Since our concept revolved around a galactic real-time 3D data visualisation we needed serious power in the graphics cards and CPU. We wrote specifications for the proposed system down to the last detail, to provide the grunt needed to drive our concept across 500+ screens and 200 million pixels. We synchronised the output to all screens via a central synchronisation server to broadcast commands across the network, accurate within thousandths of a second. We integrated a bespoke video playback system and scheduler, as well as decoding live HDTV in the form of the financial news broadcasts.

We worked extensively with the raw C++ API to provide the fastest graphical response to the markets possible. We subscribed to a huge amount of data in the feed including the constituents of the FTSE, bonds, gilts, global exchanges, news feeds etc This equipped us with enough data to cycle during the day through a vast amount of stocks, markets and global indices, to give back the feeling of a hi-tech, advanced and super fast stock exchange. Using the central vehicle of the galaxy with orbiting stocks we could see at a glance firstly whether the market was up or down for the day and secondly all the transactions and activity of all the stocks as they happened. The controls for this highly customisable system live on an intranet site we built for them, allowing LSEG to tailor-make market open events for clients using logos, videos and targeted stock information, all of which can be set and scheduled, allowing full automation of the ceremonies to synchronise with the market openings. The outcome on the screens is stunning; The London Stock Exchange once again has its spirit back.