The 30-minute show at Soccer City Stadium in Soweto happened just ahead of the Final match. It reflected the vibrancy, energy and colour that characterised one of the most successful World Cup tournaments ever. It featured a cast of 740 including 40 'elephant operators' plus 35 headline artists.
Mark Ransom was technical production manager. Technical director Mik Auckland and David Proctor, David Zolkwer and Adrian Bourke from Jack Morton Worldwide acted as consultants. A spectacular lightshow was designed by Gearhouse's Hugh Turner and Tim Dunn. Dramatic large format video pitch projections - for the first time in South Africa - helped make the visuals even more memorable.
The lighting scheme was designed and specified by Hugh Turner and Tim Dunn, with Dunn also programming and operating the show.
The lights were positioned around the stadium on four rings. Gearhouse invested heavily in Panther 2K and 5K searchlights and Vari*Lites for this gig. Vari-Lite 3000s, 3500s and VLXs were used, along with Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 2500E ATs and Robe REDWash 3-192 LED wash lights.
Eight follow spots - Gladiators and Super-troupers - were deployed around the stadium on the aforementioned four flown platforms. Dunn chose an MA Lighting grandMA system for control, consisting of three active grandMA consoles utilised for programming, with a fourth used as a technical desk on the field during programming.
UK based large format projection specialist, Ross Ashton, was appointed to help co-ordinate the pitch projections, and he worked closely with E/T/C Paris who were brought in by Gearhouse SA to supply all the hardware and control solutions.
The E/T/C Paris team was led by Patrice Bouqueniaux, and this is the first time that monumental projection has been used in South Africa.
The dramatic 55m square projections in the middle of the field-of-play were delivered by 18 x Christie 18K Roadster projectors, mounted on the two platforms flown along the east and west (long) sides of Soccer City.
E/T/C's proprietary OnlyView PC-based system was used for control, programmed and operated by Yan Kaimakis.
The sound system combined a dV-DOSC installation by Gearhouse Audio consisting of four stacks of six cabinets covering the VIP area, complete with eight dV-SUBS in cardioid arrays - and the stadium's installed EV system, which was used to cover the upper areas, and this was zoned and controlled independently.
Sixteen 21" Turbo subs were added, two stacks on the east stand and one stack each on the north and south stands to boost the low frequencies of the house PA. Nearfield monitors were added to compensate for the stadium delay along with two in the pitch for the before and after match speeches.
LA8 amps drove the L-Acoustics kit, and the system was processed, time aligned and EQ'd via a rack XTA DP 224 and 226s.
Two Yamaha PM5D consoles (configured as master and slave) were used as active and backup desks, both fed from a 48-way active split and running Yamaha Studio Manager to update both in real time. The console was operated by Marius Marais, and the systems tech was Pierre Slabbert. The show track was played from an Aleys HD machine.
All production elements of the Closing ceremony were run off generated power, supplied and distributed around the stadium by Gearhouse Power. Some 12 kilometres of mains cable weighing about 55 tonnes was shipped to South Africa by The Power Shop from Belgium.
The show - conceptualised and produced entirely by the VWV Group - has been internationally acclaimed.
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