The festivities culminated in two separate events held in the main plaza of the capital, El Zocalo. The Bicentennial, a two-day fiesta of light and music, was enjoyed by thousands of Mexican revellers, and broadcast live to millions around the world.
Production and creative direction were placed in the hands of a multi-national team with vast experience of global sporting events and ceremonies. Ric Birch, producer of numerous Olympics ceremonies, teamed up with creative partner Marco Balich of Filmmaster Group. Mexican LD Victor Zapatero was engaged as lighting designer for the main live events, while lighting director Durham Marenghi, himself a veteran of past Olympics ceremonies, was brought in to supervise the broadcast lighting.
The team drew on the creative ideas of several leading Mexican directors, designers, choreographers, artists and writers. Eventually more than 400 staff and 7,000 volunteers joined forces to present the largest show that Mexico City has ever seen.
The event involved three massive concert stages in the heart of the city, and a parade of 7,000 performers and dancers that took more than two hours to make its way along the Reforma Avenue toward El Zocalo, the capital's main plaza overlooked by the National Palace, the Cathedral and government buildings.
LD Victor Zapatero was tasked with lighting this vast, complex arrangement of stages, performers and historical buildings, as well as some 70,000 spectators that gathered and became themselves part of the performance. "My role was to find the best solution to light the show, select the best equipment, organize a team of programmers and suppliers - and then pray that everything would be alright on the night."
In order to provide light on such a massive scale, Zapatero selected 100 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500 and 74 Alpha Spot HPE 1500, recently introduced into the Mexican market by Hermes Music through local production company Luzmila.
"I was given a very convincing presentation of the Alphas by Bruno Santaguida of Luzmila", said Zapatero. "I was immediately struck by the long range of their beams, which could reach right across the 200m-wide plaza without any loss of power.
"Another thing that surprised me was the precision of the beams. All movements were slick and accurate. And the image quality of the gobos was perfectly clear. Thanks to the commitment of Luzmila, we were able to secure a record quantity of 1500s - the most used in Mexico to date."
Durham Marenghi, who supervised the lighting for broadcast, was equally supportive of the decision to use the Alpha 1500s, having previously used them in his design for the UK music show, Classical Spectacular: "They are incredible units, immensely powerful yet delicately refined. Although they're incredibly bright, you can still achieve pin-sharp projections."
Image clarity turned out to be an essential requirement, since part of Zapatero's concept required being able to project a series of intricately detailed Mexican and Mayan patterns, marking different phases of the show. A total of over 460 custom gobos were produced by UK manufacturer Projected Image.
(Jim Evans)
