The event kicked off the high profile venue's new life as a major UK concert venue in grand style - with performances by Basement Jaxx, the Kaiser Chiefs and Tom Jones. The show was presented by Dermot O'Leary.
Packed close to its 23,000 capacity, guests were treated to a five-camera IMAG show directed by Kevin Watts. The four manned Sony D50 cameras were positioned one at FOH, two left and right high up in the bleachers either side and one hand-held onstage. The fifth camera was a hot-head rigged to a circular truss hung over the front of the stage.
IMAG was fed to the side screens, while the onstage screen was fed by content from a Catalyst V4 digital media server programmed and operated by Simon Pugsley using a Hog iPC console. He worked closely with lighting designer Al Gurdon in devising different video looks that matched and complemented the lighting.
Watts cut the IMAG mix on one of XL's Kayak 2ME vision mixers, and the show was also recorded. XL's Project Manager was Tim Riley, and their other crew members in addition to Watts and Pugsley) were LED techs Graham Sharp and Yves van Acker, and engineer Dean Ruffy, plus the four camera operators.
(Jim Evans)
