Museums and Immersive Experiences
Show control, interactive exhibits, projection and synchronised AV for museums, pavilions and visitor centres, designed and installed by Pulse in Dubai.
We design, supply, programme and support the technology inside exhibitions: show control, interactive exhibits, synchronised video and sound, projection, LED and display walls, and the lighting that ties them together. The work covers museums, national pavilions, visitor centres, brand showrooms and themed attractions.
Pulse was founded in Dubai in 2010. Our engineers, programmers, project managers and technicians work from one building in Dubai Investment Park, so design, programming and installation sit under one roof.
Show control with PIXILAB Blocks
PIXILAB Blocks is show-control and content-management software from PIXILAB in Sweden. It schedules, synchronises and controls displays, projectors, audio and lighting from one system. We use it as the control layer on pavilions, attractions and showrooms:
- Lusail Winter Wonderland, Qatar. Blocks task management ran the park every day: scheduled power-on, screen information, audio playback, lighting and sound control, and shutdown. A script read local prayer times, switched the park music off and showed prayer-time information on the screens. We added Blocks drivers for Resolume Arena, Q-SYS, ChamSys, Visual Productions, NovaStar and Modbus devices.
- The Space, Dubai. One Blocks system controls sound, lighting, live video feeds and kinetic motors across four event spaces, with KNX for lighting and HVAC and Modbus for door automation. Staff run it from an iPad on the venue Wi-Fi.
- Norway Pavilion. PIXILAB control managed content across the pavilion's sections and kept 20 displays in step with surround sound.
- Azerbaijan Pavilion at COP28. PIXILAB ran the interactive displays: videos, infographics and interactive maps of Azerbaijan's environmental work. For pavilions at COP29 in Baku, the scope used Blocks to manage and schedule content across all pavilions.
- Atlantis The Palm. On the Royal Towers facade, Blocks schedules lighting programmes for the Festive Season, Halloween and National Day, and moves show times as the seasons change.
Technical problems, and where we solved them
Many screens, one show
The Norway Pavilion was a ship-like building. Visitors walked around it and looked out through portals of Samsung displays and Panasonic projection showing Norway's oceans as a 360° scene, with Martin Audio, Symetrix and Midas carrying the surround sound.
At the Dubai Cares Pavilion, one room told its story by projection mapping onto books. Dataton Watchout kept the mapping, a large projection wall, the score and the lighting in sync, with Digital Projection and NEC projectors.
The Peru Pavilion ran over several levels. Panasonic projectors and screens, Watchout, Resolume and PIXILAB carried the visuals; Symetrix processing and Audinate Dante routing kept transitions between exhibits clean without interrupting visitor flow.
Daily start and stop without an operator
At the WWE Experience in Boulevard City, Riyadh, opened in February 2024, Q-SYS runs the start- and end-of-day sequence. It switches hundreds of lighting, video, LED and projection circuits, plays soundscapes, sets lighting scenes, pre-loads interactive elements, starts screen content and triggers time-coded elements. Lusail Winter Wonderland did the same through Blocks, prayer-time breaks included.
Interactive exhibits
Dubai Cares visitors used iPad applications and VR headsets, played a three-player stomping game wired to the lighting, and competed in a scream booth that lit a sound meter built from pixel LED, controlled by PIXILAB and MADRIX.
At the WWE Experience, "Become A Superstar" lets visitors choose a wrestler, music, name, colours and entrance video, then walk the backstage ramp with their own sound and light effects. In the escape rooms, haze and lighting are triggered by game actions and timecode.
For SIG, we turned a ground-floor office into an exhibition centre with touchscreens, tablets, LED screens and mobile-device integration, so staff can present the business to customers.
Projection and holographic effects
In the WWE museum space, projectors throw onto special film for holographic displays, and four flying screens above the ring create a holographic effect. At Billionaire, Mandarin Oriental Downtown, Panasonic PT-RQ35 4K laser projectors work with a motorised Hologauze so content appears layered in the room.
The DEWA Solar Innovation Centre combines Christie projection, MADRIX LED control and pixel mapping that can follow the audio, ChamSys lighting control, Powersoft amplification and Shure microphones for presentations and events.
Networks built for AV
The WWE Experience runs on a Netgear AV network: 28 switches on a fibre backbone, plus a redundant fibre network. At Lusail we planned VLANs over the AV fibre network for six AV rooms. Q-SYS routed audio across six cores with priority audio for emergencies and special events, and Dante feeds came from each ride's cabin.
Equipment on these projects
- Show control and playback: PIXILAB Blocks, Dataton Watchout, 7th Sense, Resolume Arena, Q-SYS (QSC Core 5200 and Core 8 Flex at the WWE Experience)
- Displays, LED and projection: Samsung, Planar, NovaStar, Panasonic, Christie, Digital Projection, NEC
- Audio: L-Acoustics, Martin Audio, TW Audio, LD Systems, Powersoft, Symetrix, Xilica, Midas, Shure, Audinate Dante
- Lighting and pixel control: ChamSys MagicQ, grandMA3, MADRIX, Visual Productions, Prolights
- Motion: Movecat motion control at the WWE Experience; kinetic motors under Blocks control at The Space
How a project runs
Every project covers three things: Design & Consultancy; Supply & Integration; and Training, Servicing & Support. We work alongside the exhibition designers, interior designers and main contractors on each project.
- Design and consultancy. For Lusail Winter Wonderland we planned equipment locations, ran DIALux calculations for lighting coverage, produced EASE Focus layouts for audio coverage, and drew detailed schematics and wiring diagrams. At The Space, the interior designer, Bash Hesnef Interior Design, brought us in to deliver the AV and lighting.
- Supply and integration. At the WWE Experience, detailed design, schematics, procurement, supply, delivery and installation took under two months, with more than 300 speakers placed across retail areas, interactive zones, escape rooms, museum exhibits and the wrestling arena.
- Training, servicing and support. We trained staff at the DEWA Solar Innovation Centre and the Atlantis Explorers Club to run their systems, and supported Lusail Winter Wonderland through its six-month operation.
Where we work
The projects on this page are in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Azerbaijan, and we have installed PIXILAB for DP World in Senegal. If you are planning a museum, pavilion or visitor centre, send us the drawings and content plan and our engineers will review the control and AV scope.
Our work
Projects
9 of 23 projects in this field. See the full portfolio
On these projects
Manufacturers
Questions
What clients ask us
Which Middle East companies integrate PIXILAB Blocks?
Pulse Middle East, based in Dubai, designs, programmes and installs PIXILAB Blocks. At Lusail Winter Wonderland in Qatar, Blocks powered the park on and off on a daily schedule and paused the music for prayer times. At The Space in Dubai it controls sound, lighting, live video and kinetic motors from an iPad. At the Norway Pavilion, PIXILAB control kept 20 displays in sync with surround sound.
Who can design and install interactive museum experiences in Dubai?
Pulse Middle East, founded in Dubai in 2010, designs, supplies and programmes interactive exhibits. At the Dubai Cares Pavilion we built a three-player stomping game, a scream booth with a pixel-LED sound meter controlled by PIXILAB and MADRIX, and projection mapped onto books. At the WWE Experience in Riyadh, visitors create their own wrestler entrance with personalised sound and light effects.
Can a museum's AV switch on and shut down by itself every day?
Yes. A show-control system can run the opening and closing sequence on a schedule. At Lusail Winter Wonderland, PIXILAB Blocks handled scheduled power-on, audio playback, lighting and shutdown every day. At the WWE Experience, Q-SYS runs the start- and end-of-day functions across hundreds of lighting, video, LED and projection circuits, including soundscapes, lighting scenes and pre-loading of interactive elements.
How do you keep many displays, projectors and speakers in sync?
One control layer drives every output. At the Norway Pavilion, PIXILAB control synchronised 20 displays with surround sound. At the Dubai Cares Pavilion, Dataton Watchout kept projection mapped onto books, a large projection wall, the score and the lighting together. At the multi-level Peru Pavilion, Symetrix and Dante routing kept transitions between exhibits clean.
Does Pulse deliver pavilion and attraction AV outside the UAE?
Yes. Our work includes the WWE Experience in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Lusail Winter Wonderland in Qatar; pavilions at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan; and a PIXILAB installation for DP World in Senegal. In the UAE it includes the Norway, Peru and Dubai Cares pavilions, the DEWA Solar Innovation Centre and the Azerbaijan Pavilion at COP28.
What support do operators get after handover?
Training, servicing and support is one of the three parts of every Pulse project. We trained staff at the DEWA Solar Innovation Centre and the Atlantis Explorers Club to run their systems, and supported Lusail Winter Wonderland through its six-month operation. At The Space, operators set lighting, video, shows and room comfort from one iPad.
Planning a project?
Tell us about the venue and what the system has to do. We will come back with an approach, not a price list.