MegaPointes and Spiiders jazz it up in Dubai
- Details
Produced by Done Events, this was the first time MediaPro has been a technical supplier (lighting and video) for the festival. The event’s production design, incorporating both these disciplines plus set and scenics, was a vibrant collaboration between production designer Miguel Galvao and his assistant Andreas Malan from RAW Concepts working with MediaPro’s Harold Fernandes who was senior LD and set designer.
The goal was to create the best possible audience experience by ensuring that the rig looked larger and more impressive than in previous years whilst also capable of being pulled back to add that essential intimacy so suited to the music and performances.
It also had to offer international standards to satisfy the lighting designers and directors looking after the three headliners - Bryan Barancik for Alicia Keys, Matt Jensen for Jamiroquai and Davy Sherwin for Snow Patrol. With large amounts of LED screen onstage, it was imperative that they used bright and powerful lighting fixtures to achieve a good balance between the two disciplines, and MediaPro’s new MegaPointes and Spiiders were an obvious choice.
The fixtures were part of a substantial Robe investment made by the company in the last 12 months.
A StageCo roof structure was installed by AES, complete with a series of circular trusses between 18 and 28 metres in diameter, which were used to create a curved LED design with some elements on Kinesys hoists for movement and to lift the upstage LED screen for band changeovers. Multiple spreaders were used in the roof to create points exactly where needed for this and for the lighting trusses.
Forty-two of the 72 x MegaPointes were rigged on seven vertical truss pods along the back and upstage sides of the stage, together with another 12 on three horizontal bars creating a powerful wall of effects lights. The other 18 were on three trusses, one positioned mid-stage with two in the offstage / upstage corners.
The 48 x Spiiders were dotted around the overhead trusses and used for general wash lighting and creating rich and impressive colours. Some of the visiting LDs got arty with the ring and pixel control and the Spiiders’ central LED effects.
“Everyone enjoyed the brightness and range of effects on the MegaPointes and the fabulous clear optics,” reported MediaPro’s owner Abeesh Pushkaran.
For lighting control there were two grandMA2 full sizes at FOH and a GM2 light for the previz, running over three NPUs for processing.
The lighting and video elements worked closely together so textures and colours could be matched and contrasted at times for the best effects. All the rigging calculations and supervision was undertaken by Colin Silvers, MediaPro’s head of rigging.
(Jim Evans)
