Liverpool City Council's Executive Member for Culture, Councillor Warren Bradley, took the opportunity to launch the 'Love Liverpool' recycling campaign to the live audience of 15,000 who packed the plateau in front of the newly refurbished St George's Hall.
Regular LCC supplier, Manchester-based Audile, provided sound and lighting for the show. The lighting brief included the architectural illumination of the front of the Hall, which was achieved by using 12 High End PC beams to shoot up the columns, and eight Studio Due City Colors to wash the wall behind.
Stage Lighting included four ARRI floods attached to the FOH tower for key lighting of the performers, and four vertical bars of Par 64s onstage for a general stage colour wash. Four Martin Professional MAC 550s were used to project LCC's Partners' logos onto the fascia of the Hall. All lighting was controlled by Matthew Ransfield running an Avolites Pearl 2000.
Sound consisted of a Funktion One Resolution 5 system - eight elements a side, with two Res 4 infills, Turbo 450 wedges for monitors and a Midas Venice FOH console run by Francoise Lemoignan. Audile used their new Sennheiser 935 radio mics for the first time in an 8-way system.
Pyramid Electrical Services supplied the two Bio Fuel generators utilised for the event - one 140 KVA and one 60 KVA set. Together with some hard power from St George's Hall, this supplied all site and production power, allowing Pyramid to deal with all electrical requirements, electricity distribution and cabling. The Bio Fuel that ruins these generators is made from reprocessed vegetable waste. It's 100 per cent natural, gives off no nasty emissions or exhaust fumes and is environmentally friendly. They consume about the same volume of fuel than diesel machines. "This is the first time we've had these available" says Grant, "And we are all keen to use them where possible in the future".
Green power wasn't the only environmental factor of the day. Despite temperatures plunging all over the country, the snow-on-cue for the Sinatra set needed a little help from two new Snow Zone machines. These were supplied by Liverpool company SnowStars, and contain the very latest snow simulation technology, designed to produce a high volume effect with no slippery by-products or after-mess. The machines were operated by hand-wired remote by Alastair Savermutto, and they also have a DMX option.
Possibly the largest pyro sculpture in the UK was ignited as the Switch On reached its climax - travelling up the full height of Wellington Column shaped into a giant fir tree. Using over a kilometre of bell wire, the six Fantastic Fireworks crew led by Dave Mannion started rigging it at 9a.m. in the morning, for a 6p.m. detonation.
(Lee Baldock)
