"We first became involved with the World Cup celebration through the Spanish Royal Federation of Football who we had worked with previously on a few other events," says Gavilan.
"When we were putting the initial design together we had to take into consideration three main elements; with the number of members of the audience being around 2m, we would have to overcome very long throw distances; we would need to make sure the lighting could reach every part of the stage so that the Spanish team and officials would be lit correctly; and then we also had to have enough professional lighting for the concert performance of David Bisbal during the finale. The lighting instruments chosen had to be powerful with a broad color range and a high reliability."
During the design phase of the event, Gavilan and Ortega knew that the main obstacle facing them and crew would be the throw distances they would have to overcome. Since the Manzanares River crossed the grounds were the massive crowd would be gathered, they would have to place lighting locations approximately 100 yards from the actual stage. Because of this, when selecting their automated luminaires for the event, the fixtures would have be able to hold their intensity while still providing the wide colour range.
Gavilan continued, "When selecting the automated fixtures to use in this design, we needed equipment with a high lighting intensity for long distances and a wide range of colours. We chose VARI*LITE luminaires because they have the best intensity and their colour systems are unmatched. We also use them because of their reliability and the lens apertures. The VL3500 Wash and the VLX Wash were crucial in this design because their power and zoom capabilities helped us cover all the areas needed without sacrificing the colour palette I wanted to use."
For their design, Gavilan and Ortega from ASL chose 40 VL3500 Wash, 24 VLX Wash, 18 VL3500Q Spot, and 40 VL3000 Spot luminaires, provided by EES. From this combination, the design team was able to successfully overcome all the design challenges presented during the celebration.
(Jim Evans)
