Page 181 - Protec PR Book Volume 2

TECH PROFILE 31
3D scenic sections that were hand-painted to achieve the desired effects. This took 2 months to build and 5 days on site to assemble, once the scaffolding structure was in place.
“The most difficult aspect was creating the 2 side towers, due to the size and details required, as well as being able to fit onto trucks,” he said. “Added to this was managing to fit the set into the venue, both from a width and height perspective, and not having any of the set blocked off by anything already existing in the roof.”
Both the main and audience rigging for lighting largely comprised of Total Fabrications OV truss with a Superbeam catwalk system for the PA Sprays and everything lifted by CM Lodestar chain motors.
While adhering to such specific blueprints for the set was a challenge in and of itself, designing and rigging a lighting plot that was to be controlled from another continent was a different
animal altogether.
Protec’s Crew Chief Abi Bates was part of a
team comprising the company’s Lighting Head
of Department Aaron Russ, Paul Coopes and Nestor Piquero. She began: “The lighting spec was different than anything Protec, and probably any other company in the region, has faced before. This was because, during the section of the show that received satellite feeds from Belgium playing on the screen, the lighting operator in Belgium wanted to have remote control of the lighting desks for the UNITE shows around the world.”
The way this worked was that the lighting operator in Dubai created a show file that included a page of commands that had been requested by the LD in Belgium. This file was then sent to Belgium, where MIDI markers were imported into the show file, before being sent back to Dubai. During the show, via a wired internet connection and MIDI interface, the
lighting operator in Belgium was able to remotely operate these commands in Dubai, calling colours and some strobe effects, so that all UNITE shows had the same colour theme at the same time.
The Dubai-based operator meanwhile called movements and intensity, as these were more venue-specific.
The lighting plot for the rest of the arena (essentially the audience lighting) was designed by Protec to give the best coverage of the space, and to ensure that both lighting designs worked in harmony to create an aesthetically cohesive overall look for the show.
Protec provided all internal lighting and operating for the show, which included 12 Claypaky Stormys, 52 Sharpys, 8 Scenius Profiles, 16 A.leda B-EYE K10’s, 24 SGM Q7’s, 3 SGM P2’s, 14 Martin by Harman MAC Auras, 10 Pixel Smart LEDs, 8 Vari-Lite VL3500 washes, 8 4-Lite. Molefays, 20 2-Lite Molefays, and 25 PAR 36’s
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