Design, Development, Supply & Installation of Equipment for Studio Ulster

Tender description

The Vision for Studio Ulster (SU) is to be a leading Commercial Centre of Excellence in Virtual Production (“VP”) in the UK and Ireland and to establish a ‘Tier 1’ Centre of Excellence in Research and Development and Innovation (R&D&I), in Real-time and Virtual Production, a rapidly developing suite of technologies and methodologies for screen content production. Located on the North Foreshore in Belfast, the development of SU in conjunction with the Belfast Harbour Film Studio complex creates a unique blend of facilities, that will drive commercial activity and collaboration in R&D on an unprecedented scale involving all strands of production and technology professionals involved in the virtual production, film, broadcast, animation, games, VFX and immersive sectors. The successful appointed Economic Operator will develop technical proposals for the equipment that will allow SUL to deliver on the final Business Plan objectives. The design solutions presented should be based on the Economic Operator’s IP and best practices from experience to date in the VP sector. SU is a fully funded project, with Contracts for Funding executed and all associated legal agreements with Belfast Harbour in place. The project benefits from £25.2m (£21m excluding VAT) through BRCD, both contributions to support the initial development of the SU VP studio and to part-fund life cycle replacement costs for the specialist VP equipment, within the first 10 years of operation. The estimated value, excluding VAT, of the equipment anticipated to be procured through this contract is £20m. This represents the initial procurement of all specialist equipment required to fully operationalise Studio Ulster. The successful tenderer will develop the design, procure, delivery, install, test and commission the specialist equipment and provide all necessary training to SUL in the operation of the equipment.