TAO was brought in 21 days before show day by Creative Entertainment Groups CEO Peter Brightman to assist with one of Egypt's biggest concerts at the new resort of Port Ghalib on the Red Sea coast. The event included a support show of aerial performance art supplied by Newsubstance Creative Agency from the UK.
CEG initially required production consultancy from TAO, with Andy Cotton fly to Egypt. The first issue was the staging structures which had been newly purchased by the Egyptian production company Golden Show from Eurotruss. Although the stage roof had sufficient weight loading for the Beyonce rig, globally there was a requirement for a 7.5 tonne touring video wall to be flown from the rear arch.
Cotton worked with industry colleagues Darren Wring of Fineline Lighting and rigging specialist Nick Evans, who joined him in Egypt to redesign the structure for safety with Henk Tiekstra, Eurotruss' structural director, and to the satisfaction of Beyonce's head rigger, Bill Rengsti and lighting chief, Storm Sollars.
TAO also advanced the requirements for the support show prior to travelling to Cairo, which included 160 cylinders of helium for the Newsubstance 'Heliosphere' performance and a 90 tonne crane that needed to cross a bridge onto the island at Port Ghalib - that had a weight limit of 60 tonnes. This was solved when a crane became available via the promoter Ahmed Beltagy that could shed its jib and counter weights allowing it to travel over the bridge in three separate parts.
With the advancing of the show undertaken TAO's crew of Andy Cotton, Darren Wring and Nick Evans flew to Port Ghalib to meet with CEG's Peter Brightman and Beyonce's advance security consultant Alf Samuels.
"A site visit to the stunning Port Ghalib Marina saw a VIP raised seating structure for 2,500 that looked like it would collapse in a bad wind," revealed Cotton. With substantial experience in total event management TAO started the task of making the arena and production suitable for a world class concert, and after discussions with Beyonce's advance crew, the client The Al-Kharafi Group and Peter Brightman, three extra TAO crew were flown in from the UK four days from the show.
Cotton, together with Beyonce's Alf Samuels and promoter Ahmed Beltagy liaised with senior Egyptian Antiquities and Tourism Police to finalise security and safety arrangements, which included sniffer dogs, metal detectors and road checks.
With production in place including two projection screens, one video wall, six long throw follow spots, three truss spots, Meyer line array PA, a six tonne lighting rig and 200 steel props to support the newly designed VIP structure; the arena was completed.
(Jim Evans)
