Page 48 - Protec PR Book Volume 2

Protec’s production expertise for IDEX opening ceremony By Zoe Mutter in Live Events & Production, News March 14, 2017 0
Protec, engaged for the third consecutive time, delivered the opening ceremony production for IDEX.
As events go, there is probably no other theatrical production in the world that can boast the kind of special effects, choreography with military personnel and assets and scenic staging sets that all get thrown into a 250m x 60m performance stage that is built from ground up on a car park that is arranged into an action packed and engaging show for a live audience.
The show had a mix of local heritage performances, local & international military parades and a battle enactment featuring air drops, low passing jet fly-bys, helicopters and naval support. It was a technology demonstration worth the dedicated staging set that Protec built up for the show.
IDEX, the main event organiser in conjunction with ADNEC & the UAE Armed Forces, used Protec to design, produce, direct and build the entire temporary venue for a show that was complicated and challenging. Eddie Andradé, the show’s creative director, explains, “This show involves jets and helicopter fly pasts that have to be timed to the precise second to match up with the action sequences on the staging area performed by armoured vehicles, infantry, special effects that include large pyro explosions on land and on the mountains, water explosions, vehicle explosions, etc.” He continues, “This involves intense coordination between the show caller, stunt director and choreographer, special effects crew, stage managers, video, audio, cameras, the Navy, the Land Forces, the pilots, the Airport, the air bases, air traffic control, road traffic control, the police and civil defence.”
Protec’s founder and CEO, Stephen Lakin, was in charge of building the entire scenic set said: “Under the temporary venue that Protec built, were the exhibition centre’s utilities and drainage systems which had to be protected by the weight of the military vehicles some which weighed in excess of 60 tonnes. Therefore it had to be built up to 1m above the existing surface, graded up with sand, road base and tarmac/asphalt”, said Lakin.
Protec also built a temporary 65m long x 30m wide x 1m high ‘lake’ which held 2million litres of water on which jet boats and a submarine were run to get involved in the action. Two 16m by 9m LED screens were built into the upstage mountain structures with access to work behind them. The audio package provided by Protec included 40 L-acoustics K2 in blocks of 4 ground stacked with L-acoustics SB28 subs positioned between each set of two K2 stacks. A dual redundant fibre network using Digico racks was chosen running digital outs and Optocore Sane units running analogue outputs to the LA8 amplifiers. This complemented the use of the SD10 mixing desk with SD-RE redundant engine which meant the team could lose kit or connections anywhere in the network and not lose audio or control at all. For communications a Clearcom matrix and a selection of control panels, helix net belt backs and Motorola digital radios were integrated with Riedel RiFace units for seamless communication across platforms.