This year the Durban ICC was named "Africa's number 1 meeting and conference centre" by the prestigious World Travel Awards, for the 11th time in 12 years. The ICC has welcomed kings, queens, presidents, actors, icons and entertainers and has hosted some of the biggest, most high profile conferences in the world.
The anniversary project's objective required event organisers to showcase the capacity, versatility and flexibility of the ICC to stage major international events
Makulu Events was awarded the tender to organise the event and with the ICC, invited a number of companies to propose designs and ideas. It was suggested by Makulu to use cutting edge technology incorporating LED screens. Black Coffee proposed a stage, set, audio visual and lighting concept that went against this suggestion and proposed that a 20m wide by 8m high three dimensional set be made out of flats - this would be the background for AV mapping instead of LED Screens.
"Since the World Cup, there has been an overuse of LED screens in events of all budgets. This has become too common in large events and although still impressive, is no longer cutting edge", says Brandon Bunyan of Black Coffee.
The technical tender was split into two sections - AV and sound and lighting; stage and set and structures.
"We were thrilled that Selbys got the AV component of the function, Selbys is one of the most reputable sound companies in South Africa and we needed their new AV mapping expertise and gear to make our set proposal work. This was guaranteed to be a tight technical team", said production manager Llewellyn Pieters.
After scaling down, lighting designer Simon Hampton's wish list included: 8 x Robe Color Wash 700, 4 x Robe Colorspot 1200, 24 x Robin 100 LEDBeam, 16 x Robe Colorspot 575, 24 x Robin 600 Wash, 12 x Clay Paky Sharpys, 18 x Philips Selecon SPX Profiles, 12 x Philips Selecon Rama Fresnels, Lumen Radio, 2 x LeMaitre Hazers, 24m Cameleon LED Star Cloth, 1 x GrandMA 2 light were used.
"The Lights had to be hung high enough to clear the 8.6m high screen. With only 1.4m clearance it only just fitted in. The use of Sharpys ensured good effects without the beam work interfering with Selby's HD projectors. DWR sent down 2 x Robe MMX and 2 Clay Paky 800 Alpha Spots to demo and compare", said Simon.
Interestingly, Simon, Brandon and Llewellyn (Black Coffee), and Roger Mc Fall from Selbys had all worked on the ICC opening in 1997, all for different companies.
(Claire Beeson)
