Page 309 - Protec PR Book Volume 2

Protec was also on hand for the video solutions with three Dataton Watchout Servers for content playback used for the opening video. ‘We used three, lower thirds for name-slides, timecode for other departments and audio tracks, whereas one production machine was controlling two display machines, one main and one backup,’ said Florian Hoss, Protec’s senior video technician. ‘The Watchout main, backup and the incoming camera signal was then switched by a Barco S3-4K to screen. The screen was powered by a quadruple stack of our 30K Barco HDF-W30 FLEX projectors. We used two main and two backups with a seamless failover switch over Widget Designer.’
Due to the wide expanse of the venue, scaffold towers had been erected around the grandstand area. For the three big structures on the open side near the road, Protec used its total fabrications EHD truss to span across in order to hang the lights. Underneath the grandstand, five more little scaffold towers were placed so the smaller truss and hang fixtures around the area could be used.
‘We had four follow spots towards the backend of the arena to pick up speakers and performances,’ said project manager Simon Travis. ‘We used 16 Supersharpies on top of the set to create a nice beam effect up top. On the floor on either side of the stage, we used four Supersharpies, our new Robe Pointes and Robe Spikies. Underneath the set, which was used as the stage entrance, we used 12 more Robe Spikies for more beam effects. Along the edges of the stage we used a total of 56 Claypaky K10 B-Eyes with 30 SGM P2s and 24 Robe Pointes to create some interesting effects there and to wash along the stages for the performances.’
Additionally, under the grandstand roof and front of house towers, Protec stepped in to deploy Varilite Spots while 24 Varilite Washes and 24 Claypaky Alpha Wash 1200s were placed for the grandstands and athletes seating area. ‘16 Claypaky Scenius Profile rigged around the arena picked up the performance on stage as well as some key positions for speeches,’ added Dan Ivanovski, Protec’s lighting engineer.
Preparations ahead of the opening ceremony were far from plain-sailing. Some of the challenges to arise in the days leading up to the event include heavy wind and heat while there were also concerns over the shaking of the projection tower. Another problem was the constant realignment adjustments to the metal that continued shift due to the constant weather fluctuations.
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