Produced by Sir Michael Parker, the event was almost a rehearsal for The Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations, with which he will also be involved. The 3,000 strong choir, drawn from schools, churches and choirs across the UK, Europe and Africa, will go on to form part of the 5,000-strong Golden Jubilee Gospel Choir which will sing at Buckingham Palace in June.
Lighting the show on behalf of Fourth Phase, LD Michael Odam - who signed in at the Royal Albert Hall at 6am and signed out 16 hours later - had an unusual brief from the rental company: to use as much of Royal Albert Hall's own lighting rig as possible! As a charity event, the organizers wanted to keep additional costs to a minimum. "The trick with an event such as this," said Michael, "is to not be too ambitious and the Hall has a sizeable lighting rig of its own. I specified a Whole Hog II desk from Fourth Phase, added 30 moving lights, including Mac 500s, Mac 600s and Studio Spot, to the existing rig, and we also had a Cirrolite hazer and Jem fog machine, plus a Reel EFX Sky Dancer Fan. While you can never pre-plan everything, I work with WYSICad and Fourth Phase has a WYSIWYG facility, so I was able to do some patches, colour sets and a couple of looks before the event. However, with a show like this there are always surprises - the first time we saw the speakers who linked all the elements together was the actual show itself!"
Screenco was commissioned by Unusual Services to supply the LED screens for the event. The company provided a large 5 x 5 15mm LED screen, (4.8m wide and 3.6m high) which was flown upstage centre, whilst sister company CT London provided cameras and mixing equipment to feed video and live relay to the screen.
(Ruth Rossington)
