"Robert Hoey was the set designer," explained Sean Hoey, partner at Dream Sets. "It was his vision and creation; he spent so many hours over several days at his drawing table, that the chair he was sitting on eventually broke."
Their brief by the client Vertical Limit Productions (VLP) was for Robert to design his dream set, one he had always wanted to design, without any limitations and as they put it, "something organic".
"On the morning of the pitch, Robert arrived at 9am and showed me the design before meeting with the client," remembers Hoey. Looking at it, Sean turned to his brother and said, "You're mad."
Robert Hoey knew the structure would light well and his request to lighting designer, Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier was, "Please light my set beautifully."
Another challenge was the rigging. For the first time ever, Dream Sets hired a 20m boomlift to reach into the realms of the Superbowl's roof structure. Thomas Peters was the head rigger and head of power, a mammoth task. Other companies who helped to get the gig ready and working on time included MGG Productions, AV Unlimited and Audio Logic. Without this amazing team and their invaluable efforts we could not have pulled this off.
It took four to five days to rig the lighting equipment and at least two days to programme. "I did all programming on site," said Cutts. While essentially it's an awards ceremony with 11 performances, the size made it spectacular to work on. Joshua used 15 universes for the first time in his life. He programmed on Dream Sets MA full size with two MA Command Wings running at full for back-up.
"Just the scale of it, to be in control of such a huge lighting rig, and then to have a team running all day and all night, was a highlight for me," said Joshua.
(Jim Evans)
