Rainier Takes Home Gold
After our successful participation in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Rainier was excited to bid on a number of exhibit projects for this year’s games in Vancouver, B.C. After the intense bid process, Rainier was one of five Washington companies to secure work for the Olympics. Rainier was given the mission to fabricate twelve 40-foot tall way-finding towers, the infamous “Kiss and Cry” booth where anxious figure skaters await their results, and a variety of other sign and banner projects.
The towers were forty feet tall and served as monolith signs to identify each major venue where the events were held. They were internally lit with LED lighting that transitioned from blue to green to white then back to blue. Construction of the towers drew from the core strengths at Rainier, from design and engineering to fabrication, graphics and installation. Towers were freestanding and engineered to withstand the harshest winter winds. The towers were so popular with fans that thousands of visitors snapped souvenir photos next to them. Many will remain as commemorative markers of the Olympic venues.
The name for the infamous “Kiss and Cry” booth was coined by the Olympic Game Committee because it acts as a backdrop for the figure skaters to kiss and cry while they wait for their scores. The booth was designed and fabricated by Rainier, and features digital graphics printed by our family of Durst Rho printers. The “Kiss and Cry” was the most talked about visual element of the Olympics; the Olympic Gaming Committee dubbed it the “best Kiss and Cry ever!”
Other samples of our work were at the Olympic Curling Event, where an enormous dye-sublimation banner flanked the auditorium. We also provided several thousand square feet of printed mesh banners that were on display at many of the mountain venues. Rainier’s “can-do” attitude was in full force, as some of the banners were ordered at the last minute and installed just hours before the opening ceremony. For the Rainier team, our connection to this year’s Winter Olympic Games is like bringing home the Gold.
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