MTV EMA's spectacular set (designed by Es Devlin), transformed Belfast's Odyssey Arena with a complex combination of curved scenery at both ends and technical production equipment. Every inch of the venue was utilised to achieve the combined requirements of the live show and television producers for the broadcast to over 600m MTV homes around the world.
Blackout director Kevin Monks has worked with the MTV EMA producers all over Europe since 1998. And comments, "The MTV EMA is always a spectacular show and a technically complicated one to achieve. This year we were working to a very tight build schedule, which the brilliant MTV EMA event manager Maggie Mouzakitis delivered with calm assurance - and there were a lot of (crazy) creative ideas for us to accommodate within the Odyssey Arena."
Monks managed a team of nine Blackout riggers, including the experienced Oz Marsh and Pete Rayel, who installed over 200 rigging points on their first day in the venue. In all there were 250 rigging points, with Blackout providing the Kinesis automation system controlling over 50 motors in the venues roof alongside PRG. Blackout also supplied all of the truss, 150m of pipe and drape for the main show and additional equipment for the other show and after-party venues.
Monks continues, "We are here to make things happen for people. We leave our premises with materials well in excess of the core plans and we're here to service peoples' needs - we have an ethos of being helpful and getting things achieved.
"There's a great co-operation with other suppliers, in particular PRG and Set Square, who we liaised with extensively in the month prior to the show and the in-house rigging team once we were on site. The curved set was constructed brilliantly and went together very easily on site prior to being rigged to fit within centimetres of both sides of the Odyssey."
Other key elements Blackout supplied were the extensive mother grid over the main performance stage, with additional truss for the B stage, for flying Jessie J and aerial camera rigs. At the opposite end of the hall was the award presenters' stage, behind which Blackout delivered an ingenious method of rigging the rear curved screen.
Monks explains, "We were given the challenge to rig a screen without any rigging from the ceiling, so that sightlines into the - artist seats were kept clear. I adapted our Prolyte soundmast towers and created a curved seven-tower ground support to enable XL Video's screen to be lifted. The 6m towers had a metre beneath the stage with the motors located there out of sight, and the chain was fed through a guide at the top of the tower to rig the 4m high screen. A simple but effective solution which worked very well."
(Jim Evans)
