Page 85 - Protec PR Book Volume 2

Mother of the Nation Festival
Abu Dhabi 2017
Mother of the Nation (MOTN)
Spread across ten days and more than a kilometre of Abu Dhabi’s corniche — the Mother of the Nation Festival (MOTN) celebrates, commemorates and honours the inspirational values of Her Highness Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak.
Protec was engaged for the second year running, working for Flash Entertainment to provide cutting edge technology for the Main Stage and by HQ Worldwide Shows, to light up the Happiness Zone — one of five such diverse activity zones designed to preserve the Emirati heritage.
Protec provided a fully integrated technology package including rigging and an array of backline from drum kits to keyboards — under the project management of James Lakin. However, their biggest challenge was not just servicing a total of 42 Main Stage performances with mission critical lighting, much of it from the Clay Paky catalogue, or its L-Acoustics KARA PA and DiGiCo
control – there was also the real challenge of dealing with extreme external circumstances.
The wet weather and high wind speeds during the build-up provided an unexpected challenge. All equipment needed to be weather protected overnight and projectors realigned in the short 20 minutes of darkness before the event started each night. Audio kit was damaged by water when the covering was ripped off by freak winds, but fortunately Protec were prepared, and had spares on site. This allowed them to deliver a seamless show in extremely difficult circumstances.
Summing up the event, James Lakin said:
“All in all, the team delivered a seamless show over some fairly
difficult and unpredictable days. We managed to deliver on all fronts, which given the size of the site, and challenging weather conditions during the build-up, was no mean feat.”
MOTN Festival 2017