Across the evening, WL assisted with lighting of the building's exterior, the main auditorium along with the red carpet for when the high-profile guests arrived. This involved working closely with the Awards' lighting designer Petter Skramstad. He comments, "With the lighting, I wanted to keep it very clean and simple. We needed a few punchy effects for the actual award presentation yet we didn't want to create something too flashy. It also had to work alongside the video presentations that were used throughout the ceremony."
Petter drew on WL's state-of-the-art technology in order to assemble his lighting rig. He comments, "We used Clay Paky Sharpys as table pinspots and used Vari-Lite VL3500Q Spots for the stage lighting. Martin MAC Aura XBs were used to create a general wash whilst the 20 Colour Force 48 Battens allowed for great white light and pastels."
For the lighting of the red carpet and the building's exterior, WL supplied 28 x SGM P5s, 24 x Arri 2KW Fresnels, 14 x Galaxia LED Soft Lights and 16 x CORE ColourPoint 30s.
Alongside the lighting, WL also assisted with the logistics of running the evening. Jim Lambert, lead production manager for the Awards, comments, "The biggest obstacle was the lack of time combined with the vast amount of equipment that required setting up. There is a noise curfew in the street behind The ENO Coliseum which prevents loading in through the theatre's stage dock between certain hours. Therefore managing the logistics of some 30 trucks of various staging, AV and catering equipment was extremely tricky!."
This meant precise planning was of vital importance, especially as The ENO Coliseum had three shows in rotation. Dominic Yates, WL's project manager, comments, "We had about 30 hours to achieve the load in, which entailed the construction of the entire event, and then only twelve hours to load out again as the English National Opera were performing the very next night. Working alongside Jim and The Coliseum, we were able to ensure that the evening ran as smoothly as possible."
WL also supplied power distribution for all of the other departments working on the Awards, including catering and backstage. Dom comments: "We have worked on several high-profile award ceremonies and fully understand the important role each different area plays throughout the evening. The entire show is quite holistic so we tried to provide support wherever we could."
(Jim Evans)
