Hosting the SEA Games for an unprecedented fourth time since its inauguration in Bangkok, Indonesia had high ambitions to once again be a perfect host and claim the trophy of being the most successful participating country. Careful planning went into choosing Jakarta and Palembang as host cities.
Planning for the Opening Ceremony started many months in advance. Lighting consultant Bernard Chew chose grandMA2 consoles for lighting control. Using grandMA2 on PC and grandMA 3D to plan and visualise the event, he was able to conceptualize the show and make necessary suggestions.
"MA provided us with the fixture library in an instant, and this kind of help was absolutely crucial to us," states Chew. He also recommended the consoles to Mr. Hendra Lie, the owner of rental company Mata Elang.
The Organizing Committee also brought in Paul Collison from Australia (well known and respected for his work on the Beijing Olympics, the Shanghai World Expo Opening, X-Factor Australia, the Opening Ceremony of the 2011 Rugby World Cup and Singapore's National Day Parade).
Collison was acting as a lighting supervisor whilst also helping the programmers working on the three grandMA2 consoles. "I was very impressed at the ability of the three programmers to change their 'single cue per fader' mentality and really grasp the tracking cue list abilities of the grandMA2 system" he states. "Timecode was an added complication, however by the end, they saw the benefits of a sensible tracking sequence all cued to a single Timecode show. It certainly made a huge difference to the quality of the final show."
The two grandMA2 full-size consoles, a grandMA2 light plus two MA NPUs (Network Processing Units) were provided by Mata Elang and Kompas TV. Kompas TV already had some experience with the grandMA2 desk, but Mata Elang received their two grandMA2 full-sizes and MA NPUs just one week before the show.
(Jim Evans)
