Although tempered by news of the Asian Tsunami - a two-minute silence was held before the display and certain elements of the projection and light show were removed - the overall reaction from audience and press was that London had got this New Year's Eve event absolutely right. Jack Morton Worldwide (JMW) designed and produced the entertainment and managed the logistics for the event. JMW project director Jeremy Garbett and his team worked for months in advance to co-ordinate and accommodate the various council and public safety concerns.
Fireworks were obviously the major element of the show and French designer Christophe Berthonneau and his team from GroupeF did not disappoint: they produced a stunning 10-minute Theatre of Fire, culminating in what on television looked like an alien attack! The ordnance was laid out on barges on the Thames, plus many effects fixed directly to the steelwork rim and spoke of the Eye itself, and fired by a computer triggered by the first chime of Big Ben.
Lighting designer Durham Marenghi called upon associate LD Paul Cook to add his years of experience with the Eye to the event. Lighting was carefully co-ordinated with Christophe to synchronize the colour and dynamics of the firework sequences, producing a seamless fusion of light and fire. The lighting system included 100 Vari-Lites to uplight the Eye from the pontoon; two Lightning Strikes and 10 Syncrolite searchlights as backlight, with a MAC 2000 wash in each pod, driven by DaftDATA wireless DMX.
The lighting programme was created off-site in WYSIWYG: the limited time on-site was mainly dedicated to the GroupeF pyro riggers. Once again, says Marenghi, WYSIWYG was fundamental to the event's success. Large-scale projection onto the Shell Building was designed by JMW's Dan Colborne and projected by specialists E/T/C. The full surface of the building was covered by eight PIGI 6kW projectors, sited 150m away on the edge of Jubilee Gardens in a curtain-sider truck: each provided a 50 x 50m image, overlaid for optimum brightness. Artwork for over 120 slides - including a 60-second countdown - was designed by JMW's Matt Leech, with E/T/C undertaking all the camera obscura work for the perspective correction and to fit them to the building.
Although there was no soundtrack to the display, the evening's link to the BBC and the chimes themselves were relayed by a discreet public address system. The famous midnight chimes of Big Ben were amplified by Delta Sound via seven L-Acoustics V-Dosc and two dV-Dosc line arrays hung on a series of Summit Steel SmarTmasts positioned between Westminster and Jubilee Bridges.
The sound scheme, designed by Delta's Paul Keating and Jim Lambert - was also used to amplify the music and announcements prior to the event. Keating designed a system in which a pair of the new-generation Soundweb London BLU-80 devices were used in conjunction with a free space optic, infra-red point-to-point bridge. Four microphone sources were placed in the Clock Tower of Big Ben, fed into the first BLU-80, which in turn were connected to the 'sending' FSO, IR unit. The receiving IR unit was situated on the ground some 400m away, feeding the signal back into the second BLU-80. This allowed the audio to be distributed to the eight speaker masts on the Embankment between Westminster and Jubilee Bridges.
The BBC were so impressed with the link, they opted to use it as their source for the live broadcast output, instead of using the standard ISDN circuits from Broadcasting House.
Many hard-working people gave up time over Christmas to create this successful event. Lighting suppliers were Stage Electrics and PRG, distro was from Power Logistics and crowd control by Show and Event
