Madonna wowed the crowd with the first live televised performance of her new single 'Hung Up', emerging from a 2m mirrorball wearing purple leather boots and matching leotard. The mirror ball was flown out on a Liftket high-speed motor controlled by Kinesys' Vector system, enabling it to travel the 17m very smoothly in seconds.
It was just one of a number of automation 'gags' run by operator Toby Rouse for the event. Other artists making use of Kinesys equipment included Gorillaz, Shakira and host Borat. Kinesys also arranged the movement cues for two upstage lifting video walls that were used as stage entrances and exits.
Gorillaz incorporated two Pepper's Ghost effects in their performance. This involved 11 Lodestar Elevation motors in total - two for the large panel (for the band), three on the drum kit panel and six motors for the projector truss, which was sub-hung from a large trussing grid. All motors were controlled via the Kinesys system.
Presenter Borat - a spoof character created by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen/a.k.a. Ali G - didn't escape the gags! At a strategically cued moment in the show, one of the stage managers clipped a line to a hidden harness in his pants, resulting in Borat being hoisted ungracefully 4m in the air and flailing around - courtesy of Kinesys - to the great amusement of the crowd. This involved one Liftket motor and Toby Rouse getting the cue spot on which naturally he did!
Shakira picked up the Award for Best Female. For her performance, cyc drapes were flown in on a truss with three vari-speed motors. The Kinesys system and Liftket motors were used to lift the stage right and left video screens so that artists could enter and exit the stage. These were part of a video wall traversing the entire back of the stage. Two motors were used on each screen to perform this task.
Blackout's own Kinesys conventional motor control was used for the downstage drapes truss, for a false speaker stack flown in on two motors and for Gorillaz' upstage projection screen, which was on a Kabuki drop.
(Lee Baldock)
