The one day event was produced by South African based, production house, O'MAGE with technical direction from CI-Nation. Staged at the Sun City Super Bowl, the format saw a daytime conference session followed by a gala dinner in the evening, attended by around 1200 top executives from the organisation.
Lighting for the event needed to be flexible, dynamic and multi-purpose, so MGG asked one of the country's top LDs - François van der Merwe - to come on board as Lighting Designer. Robe was chosen as the majority of the fixtures on the rig on which van der Merwe worked his creative magic.
The conference session ended with a surprise... a song-writing session involving the conference delegates in collaboration with singer / songwriter, and one half of The Eurythmics, Dave Stewart... to compose a spontaneous work, which they then performed.
After this, a kabuki drop revealed a band and full rock stage. Dave Stewart was then joined by singer Vanessa Amorosi and together they performed a 45 minute set of the Eurythmics greatest hits - to the delight of the crowds.
A lightning quick turnaround then ensued to transform the Super Bowl into a gala dinner environment.
The full show utilised nearly 200 Robe fixtures on the rig, including 24 x LEDWash 1200s and 48 x LEDWash 600s, 48 x LEDBeam 100s, 24 x Pointes - all form Robe's Robin series, together with 46 x CitySkape 48s.
MGG has made substantial investments in Robe in recent years, and as a busy rental operation, they like to keep all the newest technologies available for their clients. The Robe's have all been supplied by South African distributor DWR.
A complex network of trussing was installed in the roof of the Super Bowl to facilitate lighting, audio and projector positions all over the arena and the main presentation stage, right in the middle of the room, was part of the elegant set design by Peter Blond from O'MAGE.
In the centre of the roof space a 6m diameter circular truss was flown and this was rigged with most of the LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 600s.
Then there was an 8m hexagonal truss forming an outer ring around this which provided positions for the PA speakers and coming off at angles from that were a series of 'finger' trusses.
The entire trussing superstructure was toned with the Robe CitySkape 48s bringing a nice architectural feel to the space.
The LEDWash 1200s were positioned on the finger trusses and used for general room wash and 'house' lights. The LEDWash 600s on the central ring were also used for Dave Stewart's set. All the Pointes were on the five trussing sections above the Dave Stewart stage bringing a real sense of arena concert to his performance, together with the balance of the LEDWash 600s.
Van der Merwe programmed and ran the show on a grandMA2 full size console.
A JBL VTX25s sound system was provided for the Dave Stewart stage, and for the circular conference stage and seating area, JBL VT4886 speakers were installed throughout the venue.
Fourteen Christie 20K machines controlled by a WATCHOUT system, programmed by Mike Fynn from CI-Nation were used for the projections, with all the content created and supplied by O'MAGE, co-ordinated and produced by Peter Blond.
(Jim Evans)
