A 91st Birthday celebration party was staged in Mary Fitzgerald Square, with an eclectic line up of performers, attended by 16,000 people.
The previous week, Gearhouse SA supplied staging, lighting, sound and AV for the Nelson Mandela Foundation Lecture in Johannesburg City Hall. Professor Muhammed Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Grameen Bank addressed this annual landmark.
A strong party atmosphere pervaded Mary Fitzgerald Square, where the Gearhouse team was co-ordinated by project manager Bonni Meyer, working closely with show producers Out of The Box for the South African Music Promoters Association (SAMPA).
Gearhouse Structures built the scaffolding stage and flat truss roof system, which gave a 14m wide by 10m deep performance area with 8m of headroom, complete with PA wings. The back wall was draped with a special banner and the PA was scrimmed with custom artwork for the occasion.
The sound system was a Turbosound Flashlight, with 16 flown mid-high boxes a side complete with 32 Flashlight subs on the deck. Monitoring was provided by 16 Clair Brothers 12am active monitors and the system was driven by BSS amps throughout.
FOH sound was mixed by Zekes Mashimbye using a Soundcraft MH4 console, with an MH3 onstage for the monitors, looked after by Frikkie Souls. The set up at both ends of the multicore included BSS gates and compressors and a good selection of classic effects like TC M3000 and Lexicon PM91 reverbs and SPX 990 multi-effects units.
Gearhouse Audio also provided a full mics-and-stands package. The two Lighthouse R16 LED side screens came from LEDVision and from EventCam, the flyaway PPU and three cameras.
The all day event line up included Taliphani, TK Dancers, Sechaba, Winnie Khumalo, RJ Benjamin, Chommie, Arthur, Nhlanhla Nciza, Solly Moholo, Kwela Tebza, Jonas Gwangwa, DJ Sbu, Stoan Seate, Florence Masebe, Meshack Mavuso, DJ Fistas, DJ Pepsi, DJ Mahoota, Deborah Fraser, DJ Siyanda, Thembi Seete, Professor and Tizozo and Wanda Baloi, and Nigeria's Kunle Ayo.
The high profile Nelson Mandela Foundation Lecture receives worldwide media attention, is broadcast live via satellite and streamed on the internet throughout Africa and this year was also beamed to New York. It is attended by members and associates of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, selected top politicians, intellectuals and professionals of all types, plus commercial and business leaders and innovators.
The lighting design was created by Hugh Turner. He used 21 Martin Professional MAC 2K Wash and 10 MAC 2K Profile moving lights to wash the stage and as key and back-lighting. 24 ETC Source Four PAR units with barn doors were attached to the front rail of the ground support structure for lighting the audience, supported by 10 bars of 6 PARs mounted in the boxes running along the length of the room and the rear balcony.
Turner ran the show using an MA Lighting grandMA full size console, with one NSP, backed up by grandMA on PC software running on his laptop.
Gearhouse Audio supplied an L-Acoustics Kiva PA system. This was looked after by Andreas Furtner, who has worked on the last two Lectures.
Two projection screens left and right of the stage came from Gearhouse AV and were fully integrated into the overall set and look of the Lecture. These were fed by two Christie 16K projectors with IMAG images of the live TX feed coming from the OB truck, along with graphics and video playback.
Bonni Meyer was again the Gearhouse project manager for the Lecture, and worked closely with production company EVENT Plus and stage manager Sharif Baker.
(Jim Evans)
