The festival narrates the ongoing conservation of Abu Dhabi's most historic fort, and through a series of highly interactive elements, hosted a celebratory programme to reinstate the Qasr Al Hosn site as the cultural heart of Abu Dhabi.
Qasr Al Hosn, which has stood as the symbolic birthplace of the Emirate and home to Abu Dhabi's ruling Al Nahyan family, is undergoing a comprehensive process of preservation, restoration and rehabilitation.
Based around the historic Qasr Al Hosn Fort, the Qasr Al Hosn Festival 2016 welcomed over 130,000 visitors who were able to immerse themselves in an interactive setting exploring and celebrating the culture, art and history of Emirati heritage that has formed the basis for the gleaming modernity and success of the region today.
Lead lighting designer Stephen Page and a team of seven designers and on-site LDs from dbn worked closely with Tom Ralston and Jonathan Godsmark from Eclipse Staging Services Dubai who provided all the lighting, AV, power and rigging equipment for the huge open air interactive experience. dbn's ambitious task was to design an overall scheme to light all the different areas of the site.
The final designs required 3,900 separate lighting fixtures, together with around 45 kilometres of cabling and 1,200m of trussing. There were a total of 22 x dimmer cities across the site involving 28 lighting dimmer racks and 52 lighting power distros.
Control for the 24 x DMX universes of lighting required for the main site was from Eclipse's Jands Vista T2 Console, supported by one of dbn's Jands D1 processors and additional PC based Vista consoles and wings, all acting as part of a single Vista network. This allowed operating in a tracking backup configuration, and enabled network based programming and processing, coupled with fail-safe show operation.
Stephen directed the programming and focus for the whole festival, supported by Nick Buckley and Pete Isherwood, with further assistance from Phil Woodbridge, Paul Crompton and Paul Moloney, all working with an extensive crew of lighting and electrical technicians and riggers from Eclipse.
In addition to the creative goals, Stephen had to utilise equipment that was practical to install and maintain in this temporary setting.
"The design had to be multi-faceted," he explains. "The job of the production is to take visitors on a journey away from the urban bustle of the city around it, through the nation's rich history and heritage to understand how they act as the background for the success and growth of the nation today."
dbn also developed and installed the lighting design for a new permanent exhibition housed in the Qasr Al Hosn Visitor Centre located close by the Fort. People designed and produced an installation telling the story of Abu Dhabi and its people through the city's oldest building (Qasr Al Hosn) featuring displays of historic artefacts, fascinating oral testimonies and historic photographs that bring this important monument to life.
Nigel Walker, dbn's Special Projects designer, acted as lead designer for the exhibition area and used a range of ETC and Prolights StudioCOB fixtures to complement Lumenpulse track fittings and bespoke installations of various discreet LED sources built into the structure of the exhibits.
Says Stephen, "It was brilliant to work on the Qasr Al Hosn Festival again this year, I was very proud of the whole team from dbn and the part we played in helping to make the festival such a huge success, and look so beautiful."
(Jim Evans)
