The show was lit by Dubai and UK based LD Steve Shipman whose design used over 120 Robe moving lights including 12 x BMFL Spots, all supplied by technical production company Solution Media. Steve had also designed lighting for the same show in London in August.
The brief was to design a big colourful show with lots of WOW factors and eye-candy, so he set to work using the kit that was available from Media Solutions, which included 12 x MMX Spots, 18 x LEDWash 1200s, six LEDWash 600s, 34 x LEDBeam 100s and 40 Pointes plus the BMFL Spots which were positioned on the floor.
Eight moving trusses (on a Kinesys system) were key to the show, all of these were loaded with Pointes and video panels, and there was also a big mesh video screen upstage. Four of the trusses had four Pointes and the other four had six units each. Then there was a standard front-mid-back truss arrangement across which the rest of the kit was divided, apart from the 12 x BMFLs.
A thrust at the front of stage was highlighted by 18 LEDBeam 100s running along its path, with a diffusion filter added to increase the beam spread.
The BMFLs were arranged in a straight line along the back of the stage.
Lighting was programmed on a grandMA2 full size console which was also driving content for the 5 x 1m video panels mounted on the eight moving trusses.
Akon brought his own LD Brett Lorins, and Steve ran lighting for the others. Steve hand-picked four lighting crew - Jossy Thomas, Sree Srinivasan, Shane Rivera and Kishore Kumar - from Dubai based World Stage Management - to work alongside him on the event.
(Jim Evans)
