Whilst the event's logistics were handled by Citigate, it fell to Park Avenue to co-ordinate all the technical and creative aspects of the show, one of the highlights of which, was a dramatic 20-minute aerial display of colour and movement artistically directed by lighting designer Simon Tapping and choreographed by Micha Bergese- well known for his work on the Millennium Dome's Central show.
Park Avenue realized an ambitious immersive environment, which included the tasteful branding of all Colour Line's foyer, public and exterior spaces with the HSH-Nordbank clouds (their corporate ID), and the transformation of the arena into a 4,500-seat space. The guests - HSH-Nordbank's employees and top clients - arrived for dinner and a champagne reception in the foyer areas - completely unaware of what lay in store in the arena! The aerial show was followed by a short press conference and the finale - a full-on Bon Jovi gig!
Lighting & Projection
The team transformed the arena into an intimate space by creating a low-slung 360° projection screen at the top of the bleacher seating. The screen, 10m high and nearly 300m around, was fabricated by Acre Jean. Ross Ashton of projection specialist E/T/C UK came on board to bring this surface to life. He used 10 6kW PIGI projectors with double rotating scrollers, rigged on special platforms in the centre of the arena, and pointing outwards towards the screens - the first time in Europe that PIGI projection has been run in a 360° format.
The digital element of the PIGI artwork was created by Park Avenue's Will Case, and programmed onto the new PIGI OnlyCue control software - a development which offers greater control over the speed of the film scrolling - by operator Andy Murrell. The photographic part of the scrolling film material was created by Ross Ashton and Paul Chatfield at E/T/C UK, and Ashton also put together additional artwork for the Bon Jovi set. All the projectors were configured to scroll vertically for efficient scene shifts: half way through the show, the scrollers spun 180° and scrolled vertically in the opposite direction for the latter half of the performance. All artwork was skillfully merged and soft-edged through 360°.
Masks in the scrolling artwork allowed four video images to be projected on to the centre of each face in the venue. Blitz Vision took care of the video, supplying eight Barco G5s, doubled up to produce 14m wide images, plus three Sony cameras and a PPU.
Lighting was sourced from Vari*Lite Europe for the aerial show and presentation, designed by LD Paul Cook. The second rig, used exclusively for the Jovi part of the show and designed to meet the spec of Bon Jovi's LD Pat Brannon, was flown up and out of the way until needed.
Cook's rig included an assortment of Martin MAC 2000s, VL5 Arcs, VL4Bs (for lots of pastel hues) and VL 2204 profiles. He also positioned units in banks around the arena floor to light the undersides of the performers. The mountain prop, a major feature of the aerial show, was internally illuminated with Par 36 ACL battens and also contained a smoke machine. One of many 'specials' was a set of break-up gobos for the profile moving lights, which were 'sampled' from some of the projected artwork, and manufactured by Projected Image. Cook ran the show using a Wholehog II with a Lightmasters 24-way submaster desk bolted on.
Bon Jovi LD Pat Brannon passed his touring gear list onto Paul Cook who modified it, taking into account the fact that the performance area was situated to the side of the hall, which effectively limited the flyin
