Robe joins National Day celebrations
- Details
The spectacular, performed by a cast of over 800 singers, dancers, actors and poets of all ages, was attended by His Highness Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Supreme Council member of the UAE & Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, plus a host of dignitaries and VVIPs as well as 10,000 members of the public.
The show, which included eye-catching projections mapped across a 92m wide set and performance / presentation area, celebrated UAE’s achievements over the last 45 years and presented a vision of the future of the country based on peace and inclusion. It culminated in a high-impact 4 minute pyro and laser spectacular finale, leaving guests stunned with awe!
Lighthouse Productions actually designed and built the entire 1,250,000sq.m site from the ground up, creating the venue for the event - from the stage and set, extensive backstage and production areas to the seating tribunes and car parks - in an empty space on the mangroves along the Ras al-Khaimah Corniche waterfront.
Terry – designer of the show as well as being responsible for the lighting design - with his team at Lighthouse Productions have designed, produced and supplied equipment and technical services for many prestigious events in the region. A project like this with a complete site build starting a month before the show date was challenging, high pressure and ‘pushed the envelope’ in every way.
Terry stated that “Intricate projections were mapped onto the side screens for the show whilst a large cast of dancers and actors played out onstage, so it was essential that I had the best and most versatile lighting fixtures to both support the video projections and to ensure that everyone could clearly see all the stage action across the vast area.”
He continued, “There was no roof on the stage, so all the lighting positions were created from a massive structure at the back with horizontal and angled lines of trusses sub-hung either side of a central V-shape.”
Thirty-two Robe MMX WashBeams were utilized, rigged all over the structure. They were used extensively for general lighting, washing the stage, for gobo and beam work onto the floor and also to complement the fireworks, the majority of which were rigged to a 72m wide x 44m arch erected behind the stage.
There were 22 x 300E Beams on the show, 14 rigged on horizontal trusses both sides of the stage and used for punchy beam to complement the projections and the other eight on the verticals.
Twelve ColorWash 575 ATs – still going strong after over 10 years’ service in the dusty, arid desert environment of the UAE – provided rear and side lighting onto the dancers.
One of Lighthouse’s recent purchases has been Pointes and 24 of these were used on this show, rigged on the angled trusses either side and used for a variety of aerial effects and as head-height lighting for actors entering the stage space on a mechanical boat prop.
Twelve PARFect 100s along the front of stage left and right were used to illuminate the various dance troupes participating in the show, with another 12 dotted around at the back.
Other Robe fixtures on the rig included CycFX 8s, LEDWash 1200s and ColorMix 250s.
Over 400 technical and event services staff and crew in total were involved in staging the 2016 Ras al-Khaimah National Day Celebrations so successfully, including a full time team of 30 from Lighthouse Productions. The lighting programming was completed by Adrian Guzman.
The musical was directed by Mohammad Al Amri, director of the show, Ali Al Khawar, director of the music and Obaid Ali, director of the choreography. It was the largest Emirati musical production to date, created and presented by a strongly Emirati team working alongside Terry and Lighthouse Production.
(Jim Evans)
