dbn's Pete Robinson led their team and worked closely with lighting designer Chris Davey to realise his specification and design for lighting a main orchestra / choir stage plus a smaller dance performance stage that was built just in front.
The concert section of the event included Manchester's Hallé Orchestra playing several well-known pieces of music related to the First World War and a major physical dance piece which was staged on the forestage. The concert also featured a range of letters, poems and diary entries depicting the lives of those affected by the Somme and soldiers' songs of the time performed by a national children's choir.
All this live stage action which balanced hope and poignancy with emotive reminders of just how all-encompassing the spectre of war was in this dark period of history, was integrated with archival news and film footage of the time, together with graphics relaying statistics related to the Battle. All of this was lit thoughtfully and appropriately in a masterpiece of precision and drama.
The main stage - built by Acorn - measured approximately 27m wide and 10m deep with 10m of headroom. With the 65-piece Hallé and 100-strong choir in place, every last centimetre of it was meaningfully involved!
A 16m wide by 4m high 9mm LED screen was installed mid-stage in front of the orchestra, rigged on Kinesys motors by dbn, which dropped in and out during the show, showing video content, statistics and other graphics and info.
A 'path of remembrance' was built with thousands of tiles snaking through Heaton Park as one of many creative art interventions associated with the event, and the end of this passed by the main stage connecting it to the additional dance stage that was built just in front.
To facilitate lighting both stages, three trusses were flown in the roof of the main stage, loaded with 8 bars-of-6 Source Four PARs on the downstage truss which were used to cross light the choir.
Forty-eight Spectral Zoom LED PARs were utilized for orchestra washes, and 11 Clay Paky a.leda K10s with B-EYE lenses provided the onstage specials.
Seven Mythos, on the front truss, were used primarily to back light the dance piece on the forestage, and these were also used to highlight action on the B-Stage, a completely different area near the FOH position, comprising a 2sq.m platform that rose on a scissor-lift to place a dancer in the middle of the audience.
The Last Post at the end of the piece was also played by a solitary bugler on top of this platform.
All these stage lights were controlled with one of dbn's Jands Vista T2s programmed and operated by Nick Buckley, and they also supplied two Robert Juliat Victor follow spots.
Towards the end of the event, around sundown, a massive 5 metre diameter sun made out of Molefeys was raised 20m in the air on a crane, stage right / house left and level with the FOH position.
"It was a fantastic event in which to be involved from so many perspectives" commented Pete, "There was a lot of technical brain-teasing which we like, and the end results looked completely stunning and had a huge emotional impact."
(Jim Evans)
