Forty-five nations competed during fourteen days to win gold, silver and bronze medals. Network and Console Technician Paul Collison and programmers Jim Beagley, Romain Labat, Roger Ray and Maran Persoons did their very best to give the competitions a good start. They divided the grandMA system into four sessions: Alpha Spots and Conventionals; VL3000 spots, Cameleon Lyre and TP6 projectors; Searchlights; Mac 2K Washes. Each grandMA console had an identical console as a backup which was also used for pre-programming.
The Element Labs LED video-screen that towered over Khalifa Stadium was 165 metres wide along the curve, reaching 39 metres at its highest point. It was comprised of 20,000 individual Versa RAYs, which, if laid end to end, would span 58 kilometres. 762,000 individual LEDs were used, with a pixel pitch of 77 millimetres in both directions.
The lighting equipment included 105x Alpha Spots 1200 HPE, 84x VL3000 spots, 10 Cameleon TP6M 6kW projectors, 32x Biglite 4.5kW, 382x Mac 2K Wash and 372 Par 64. "Bytecraft suggested the use of the grandMA control system after it proved so reliable and robust for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne only eight months earlier," explained Paul Collison.
Paul Rigby of Bytecraft and Philby Lewis of D.A.E. Lighting were the production managers; the equipment was supplied by Procon, Germany. The event was produced by David Atkins Enterprises. Vince Haddad from Show Technology Australia delivered MA system design support.
(Jim Evans)
