ExCeL London has undertaken the UK’s first use of the world’s most advanced floor marking robots as part of its long-term strategy to help make the industry more sustainable.
The carbon-neutral venue said the robots – launched as part of a long-term collaboration with August Robotics – will allow for “faster, more accurate and efficient” event space mark-up. It is expected to lead to a significant reduction in single-use carpets and other consumable materials used for manual marking.
The robots, named Lionel (because he marks out lines), was recently used on the mark-out of Event Tech Live 2022, which the venue hosts. As the robots are completely autonomous, event organisers no longer need to hire specialist international marking contractors.
According to a recent report by SASIE, it is estimated that as much as six million tonnes of carpet are thrown away each year by the UK event industry.
August Robotics supports dozens of exhibition centres worldwide and has marked more than one million square metres of exhibition space for large-scale events predominantly in Germany and the USA. ExCeL will also be one of the first venues globally to lease and operate their own Lionel robots, as previously they were only offered as part of a floor marking service.
Natalie Sykes, ExCeL’s dedicated sustainability manager, said: “As a carbon neutral venue, sustainability is at the forefront of our agenda and we are always looking for innovative new ways to help reduce our emissions and waste. As such, we’re delighted to be working with August Robotics to automate future floor marking operations and we’re delighted to have already undertaken the first UK application. From an operational perspective, this technology yields considerable cost savings, rapid build times for our clients and the elimination of costly mistakes and rework time.”
Alex Wyatt, CEO of August Robotics, said: “Our team has made tremendous strides to make the robots simple to use; we’re excited for ExCeL to enjoy all the advantages of autonomous floor marking.”
