Despite the large size of the venue, set designer Nik Vishnevetski and lighting designer Dimitri Pruidze's sought to create a comfortable atmosphere and as Pruidze has worked with Bilan before, the Russian star was confident the design would meet his standards.
For the main stage rig, Pruidze chose MAC 2000 series fixtures while a 12 m high by 26 m long truss housed MAC III Profiles and MAC 2000 Wash XBs for powerful beam effects and position washes. The front truss also held MAC 2000 Profiles for gobo projection onto set pieces along with MAC 2000 Washes to front wash up to 100 performers on stage.
A separate rig was used for a special VIP zone for top directors and guests from Sweden.
"The idea was to make a huge 20m truss star and to have it shine with all the colours of the rainbow, using the perfect colour mixing of the MAC 301 Washes," stated Dimitri Pruidze, who also serves as production director at Gali-Leo Rental, supplier of the Martin gear for the event. Workhorse MAC 600 and MAC 500 fixtures were also used in the VIP area.
To complete the stage look, Pruidze incorporated 24 new MAC 101 LED wash lights at the side stage sound towers and programmed them to mimic the profiles. "We got a perfect look on the stage because of them," he stated.
Lighting control was from a Martin Maxxyz, which Bilan says was no problem to programme all lighting position presets from during Bilan's sound check. He stated, "When you know the music it is very fast and easy to create looks from the song's intro to the end using very fast Submaster A and Submaster B programming."
(Jim Evans)
