Lighting designer for the biennial football tournament's Opening Ceremony was Paul Collison. "These fixtures in particular were amazingly reliable," Collison comments. "They had already spent almost three months in dessert like conditions in Doha, Qatar, for the Asian Games. Over there we were hit with rain and dust. Once we got onsite in Abu Dhabi every single fixture was stripped and cleaned out. The Procon service staff did an amazing job getting every fixture back online. Once the system was installed, I could count on one hand how many MAC 2K Washes were swapped out. They performed admirably.
"As far as I know, there is nothing that even comes close to a MAC 2000 Wash. They are by far the best fixtures when it comes to long throws, consistent colour mixing, reliability and brightness. I cannot see myself attempting a job of such scale with any other product."
On a 20m diameter circle truss (by E.S.S and Stage One) supported by eight towers outside of the stadium Collison placed 24 MAC 2000 Washes and 24 Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1200s. On the leading edge of the stadium roof were sixteen 12m trusses, each containing eight MAC 2000 Washes and three VL3000 Spots. Behind the audience, lighting the architecture and audience, were an additional 55 MAC 2000 Washes. On the field of play were 32 boxes in an 80m diameter circle each with two MAC 2000 Washes and two Alpha Spot 1200s. On the roof were 12 BigLite 4.5 fixtures with 4k Lycian followspots (four each) at the roof, behind the audience and on the field of play. Two grandMA lighting consoles, one as backup, and 11 NSPs were used for control. All lighting gear was supplied by German production company Procon Multimedia AG.
(Chris Henry)
